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THE  LITERARY  REMAINS  OF  HENRY  JAMES.  Edited,  with  an  Introduction, 
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PRAGMATISM 

A  NEW   NAME    FOR    SOME   OLD    WAYS 
OF   THINKING 


PKAGMATISM 

A  NEW  NAME    FOR    S0:ME 
OLD  WAYS   OF  THINKING 

POPULAR   LECTURES  ON   PHILOSOPHY  BY 
WILLL^^M   JAMES 


f 


NEW  IMPRESSION 


LONGMANS,   GREEN  AND   CO. 

FOURTH  AVENUE  &  30th  STREET,  NEW  YORK 
39    PATERNOSTER    ROW,    LONDON 

BOMBAY,  CALCUTTA,  AND  MADRAS 
1921 


^ei,^^^   its   LJ- 

COPYRIGHT  1907  BY  WILLIAM  JAMES 
ALL   RIGHTS  RESERVED 


First  Edition  June,  1907 

Reprinted  July  (twice),  October,  November,  1907 

February,  September,  1908 

March,  1909,  April,  1910 

November,  1910,  March,  191 1 

March,  1912,  March,  1913 

January,  1914^  August,  1916 

September,  1919 

April,  1921 


/e^-^' 


/r. 


,/-/ 


A       J 


TO  THE   MEMORY  OF   JOHN  STUART   MILL 

FROM  WHOM  I   FIRST  LEARNED  THE 

PRAGMATIC  OPENNESS  OF  MIND 

AND  WHOM  MY  FANCY  LIKES  TO  PICTURE  AS 

OUR  LEADER 

WERE  HE  ALIVE  TO-DAY 


ivi584a7{) 


PREFACE 

The  lectures  that  follow  were  delivered  at  the 
Lowell  Institute  in  Boston  in  November  and 
December,  1906,  and  in  January,  1907,  at 
Columbia  University,  in  New  York.  They  are 
printed  as  delivered,  without  developments  or 
notes.  The  pragmatic  movement,  so-called  — 
I  do  not  like  the  name,  but  apparently  it  is  too 
late  to  change  it  —  seems  to  have  rather  sud- 
denly precipitated  itself  out  of  the  air.  A  num- 
ber of  tendencies  that  have  always  existed  in 
philosophy  have  all  at  once  become  conscious 
of  themselves  collectively,  and  of  their  com- 
bined mission;  and  this  has  occurred  in  so  many 
countries,  and  from  so  many  different  points  of 
view,  that  much  unconcerted  statement  has 
resulted.  I  have  sought  to  unify  the  picture 
as  it  presents  itself  to  my  own  eyes,  dealing  in 
broad  strokes,  and  avoiding  minute  contro- 
versy. Much  futile  controversy  might  have 
been  avoided,  I  believe,  if  our  critics  had  been 
willing  to  wait  until  w^e  got  our  message  fairly 
out. 

vii 


PREFACE 

If  my  lectures  interest  any  reader  in  the 
general  subject,  he  will  doubtless  wish  to  read 
farther.   I  therefore  give  him  a  few  references. 

In  America,  John  Dewey's  *  Studies  in 
Logical  Theory'  are  the  foundation.  Read 
also  by  Dewey  the  articles  in  the  Philosoph- 
ical Review y  vol.  xv,  pp.  113  and  465,  in  Mind, 
vol.  XV,  p.  293,  and  in  the  Journal  of  Philo- 
sophy, vol.  iv,  p.  197. 

Probably  the  best  statements  to  begin  with 
however,  are  F.  C.  S.  Schiller's  in  his  *  Studies 
in  Humanism,'  especially  the  essays  numbered 
i,  V,  vi,  vii,  xviii  and  xix.  His  previous  essays 
and  in  general  the  polemic  literature  of  the 
subject  are  fully  referred  to  in  his  footnotes. 

Furthermore,  see  J.  Milhaud:  le  Rationnel, 
1898,  and  the  fine  articles  by  Le  Roy  in  the 
Revue  de  Metaphysique,  vols.  7,  8  and  9.  Also 
articles  by  Blondel  and  de  Sailly  in  the 
Annales  de  Philosophie  Chretienne,  4^'^  Serie, 
vols.  2  and  3.  Papini  announces  a  book  on 
Pragmatism,  in  the  French  language,  to  be 
published  very  soon. 

To  avoid  one  misunderstanding  at  least, 

viii 


PREFACE 

let  me  say  that  there  is  no  logical  connexion 
between  pragmatism,  as  I  understand  it, 'and 
a  doctrine  which  I  have  recently  set  forth 
as  'radical  empiricism.'  The  latter  stands  on 
its  own  feet.  One  may  entirely  reject  it  and 
still  be  a  pragmatist. 

Harvard   University,  April,  1907. 


CONTENTS 

LECTURE   I 

The  Present  DileiMma  in  Philosophy       ....        3 

Chesterton  quoted,  3.  Everyone  has  a  philosophy,  4.  Tempera- 
ment is  a  factor  in  all  philosophizing,  7.  Rationalists  and  empiricists, 
9.  The  tender-minded  and  the  tough-minded,  12.  Most  men  wish 
both  facts  and  religion,  15.  Empiricism  gives  facts  without  religion, 
16.  Rationalism  gives  religion  without  facts,  17.  The  layman's 
dilemma,  19.  The  unreality  in  rationalistic  systems,  21.  Leibnitz 
on  the  damned,  as  an  example,  23.  M.  I.  Swift  on  the  optimism  of 
idealists,  27.  Pragmatism  as  a  mediating  system,  31.  An  objection, 
34.  Reply:  philosophies  have  characters  like  men,  and  are  liable 
to  as  summary  judgments,  35.  Spencer  as  an  example,  39. 

LECTURE   II 

What  Pragmatisivi  IMeans 43 

The  squirrel,  43.  Pragmatism  as  a  method,  45.  History  of  the 
method,  46.  Its  character  and  aflSnities,  51.  How  it  contrasts  with 
rationalism  and  intellectualism,  52.  A  'corridor  theory,'  54.  Prag- 
matism as  a  theory  of  truth,  equivalent  to  'humanism,'  55.  Earlier 
views  of  mathematical,  logical,  and  natural  truth,  56.  More  recent 
views,  57.  Schiller's  and  Dewey's  'instrumental*  view,  58.  The 
formation  of  new  beliefs,  59.  Older  truth  always  has  to  be  kept 
account  of,  60.  Older  truth  arose  similarly,  64.  The  'humanistic' 
doctrine,  65.  Rationalistic  criticisms  of  it,  66.  Pragmatism  as 
mediator  between  empiricism  and  religion,  69.  Barrenness  of 
transcendental  idealism,  71.  How  far  the  concept  of  the  Absolute 
must  be  called  true,  73.  The  true  is  the  good  in  the  way  of  belief, 
75.  The  clash  of  truths,  77.   Pragmatism  unstiff  ens  discussion,  79. 

LECTURE   III 

Some  Metaphysical  Problems  Pragmatically  Con- 
sidered       85 

The  problem  of  substance,  85.  The  Eucharist,  88.  Berkeley's 
pragmatic  treatment  of  material  substance,  89.    Locke's  of  per- 

xi 


CONTENTS 

sonal  identity,  90.  The  problem  of  materialism,  92.  Rationalistic 
treatment  of  it,  93.  Pragmatic  treatment,  96.  'God'  is  no  better 
than  'Matter'  as  a  principle,  unless  he  promise  more,  100.  Prag- 
matic comparison  of  the  two  principles,  103.  The  problem  of  de- 
sign, 109.  'Design'  'per  se  is  barren,  113.  The  question  is  what 
design, ll  14.  The  problem  of  'free-will,'  115.  Its  relations  to  'ac- 
countabuity,'  116.  Free-will  a  cosmological  theory,  119.  The  prag- 
matic issu^^  stake  in  all  these  problems  is  what  do  the  alternatives 
promise,  122^ 

LECTURE   IV 

The  One  and  the  Many .     127 

Total  reflection,  127.  Philosophy  seeks  not  only  unity,  but  totality, 
130.  Rationalistic  feeling  about  unity,  131.  Pragmatically  consid- 
ered, the  world  is  one  in  many  ways,  132.  One  time  and  space,  132. 
One  subject  of  discourse,  133.  Its  parts  interact,  134.  Its  oneness 
and  manyness  are  co-ordinate,  137.  Question  of  one  origin,  138. 
Greneric  oneness,  139.  One  purpose,  140.  One  story,  143.  One 
knower,  145.  Valueof  pragmatic  method,  148.  Absolute  monism,  149. 
Vivekanda,  152.  Various  types  of  union  discussed,  156.  Conclusion: 
We  must  oppose  monistic  dogmatism  and  follow  the  empirical 
findings,  160. 

LECTURE   V 

Pragmatism  and  Common  Sense 165 

Noetic  pluralism,  166.  How  our  knowledge  grows,  167.  Earlier 
ways  of  thinking  remain,  169.  Prehistoric  ancestors  discovered  the 
common  sense  concepts,  170.  List  of  them,  173.  They  came  grad- 
ually into  use,  174.  Space  and  time,  177.  'Things,'  178.  Kinds, 
179.  'Cause'  and  'law,'  180.  Common  sense  one  stage  in  mental 
evolution,  due  to  geniuses,  180.  The  'critical'  stages:  1)  scientific 
and  2)  philosophic,  compared  with  common  sense,  185.  Impossible 
to  say  which  is  the  more  'true,'  192. 

LECTURE   VI 

Pragmatism's  Conception  of  Truth 197 

The  polemic  situation,  197.  Wh^t  does  agreement  with  reality 
mean?  198-217.    It  means  verifiability,  201.    Verifiability  means 

xii 


CONTENTS 

ability  to  guide  us  prosperously  through  experience,  202.  Com- 
pleted verifications  seldom  needful,  207.  'Eternal'  truths,  209. 
Consistency,  210;  with  language,  213;  with  previous  truths,  214. 
Rationalist  objections,  218.  Truth  is  a  good,  like  health,  wealth, 
etc..  220.  It  is  expedient  thinking,  222.  The  past,  223.  Truth 
grows,  224.    Rationalist  objections,  226.    Reply  to  them,  229. 

LECTURE   VII 

Pragmatism  and  Humanism 239 

The  notion  of  the  Truth,  239.  Schiller  on  'Humanism,*  242. 
Three  sorts  of  reality  of  which  any  new  truth  must  take  account, 
244,  To  'take  account'  is  ambiguous,  245.  Absolutely  independent 
reality  is  hard  to  find,  248.  The  human  contribution  is  ubiquitous 
and  builds  out  the  given,  250.  Essence  of  pragmatism's  contrast 
w^ith  rationalism,  257.  Rationalism  affirms  a  transempirical  world, 
259.  Motives  for  this,  260.  Tough-mindedness  rejects  them,  262. 
A  genuine  alternative,  264.    Pragmatism  mediates,  266. 

LECTURE   VIII 

Pragmatism  and  Religion 273 

Utility  of  the  Absolute,  273.  Whitman's  poem  'To  You,'  274. 
Two  ways  of  taking  it,  276.  My  friend's  letter,  278.  Necessities 
versus  possibilities,  282.  'Possibility*  defined,  283.  Three  views 
of  the  world's  salvation,  284.  Pragmatism  is  melioristic,  286.  We 
may  create  reality,  287.  Why  should  anything  he?  288.  Supposed 
choice  before  creation,  290.  The  healthy  and  the  morbid  reply,  291. 
The  'tender'  and  the  'tough'  types  of  religion,  293.  Pragmatism 
mediates,  297. 


I 

THE   DILEMMA   IN   PHILOSOPHY 


LECTURE    I 

THE    PRESENT    DILEMMA    IN 
PHILOSOPHY 

In  the  preface  to  that  admirable  collection  of  ^ 
essays  of  his  called  '  Heretics/  Mr.  Qiestertoi^.^-"^^'^V-:^  ^ 
^rites  these  words :  *'  There  are  sorae  people  —    / 
and  I  am  one  of  them  —  who  think  that  the 
most  practical  and  important^ thing  about  a  _ 
man  is  still  his  yiewofjhe  universe .  We  think 
that  for  a  landlady  considering  a  lodger  it  is 
important  to  know  his  income,  but  still  more 
important  to  know  his  philosophy.  We  think 
that  for  a  general  about  to  fight  an  enemy  it  is 
important  to  know  the  enemy's  numbers,  but 
still  more  important  to  know  the  enemy's  phil- 
osophy. We  think  the  ^question  is  notjwhether 
the  theory  of  the  cosmos^affects  matters,  but 
whether  in  the^long  run  anything  else  affects 
thenj."  *  ^ 


I  think  with  Mr.  Chesterton  in  this  matter.  I/^^^v^ 


know  that  ^ou,  ladies  and  gentleroen^have  jt  /^      j 
philosophy,  eacl^  and  all  of  you,  and  that  the    LAJl^^^^ 
most  interesting  and  important  thing  about  you  '  ^  y 

3 


PRAGMATISM 

is  the  way  in  which,  it  determines  the  perspect- 
ive in  your  several  worlds.  You  know  the  same 
of  me.  And  yet  I  confess  to  a  certain  tremor  at 
the  audacity  of  the  enterprise  which  I  am  about 
to  begin.  For  the  philosophy  which  is  so  im- 
portant in  each  of  us  is  not  a  technical  matter; 
litis  ourjnore  or  less  dumb  sense  of  what  life 
ihonestly  and  deeply  means.  It  is  only  partly 
got  from  books ;  it  is  our  individual  way  of  just 
seeing  and  feeling  the  total  push  and  pressure 
of  the  cosmos.  I  have  no  right  to  assume  that 
many  of  you  are  students  of  the  cosmos  in  the 
classroom  sense,  yet  here  I  stand  desirous  of 
iliteresting  you  in  a  philosophy  which  to  no 
small  extent  has  to  be  technically  treated.  I 
wish  to  fill  you  with  sympathy  with  a  contem- 
poraneous tendency  in  which  I  profoundly  be- 
lieve, and  yet  I  have  to  talk  like  a  professor  to 
you  who  are  not  students.  AYhatever  universe  a 
professor  believes  in  must  at  any  rate  be  a  uni- 
verse that  lends  itself  to  lengthy  discourse.  A 
universe  definable  in  two  sentences  is  some- 
thing for  which  the  professorial  intellect  has  no 
use.  No  faith  in  anything  of  that  cheap  kind!  I 

4 


THE    DILEMMA    IN    PHILOSOPHY 

have  heard  friends  and  colleagues  try  to  popu- 
larize philosophy  in  this  very  hall,  but  they 
soon  grew  dry,  and  then  technical,  and  the 
results  were  only  partially  encouraging.  So  my 
enterprise  is  a  bold  one.  The  founder  of  prag- 
matism himself  recently  gave  a  course  of  lec- 
tures at  the  Lowell  Institute  with  that  very 
word  in  its  title,  —  flashes  of  brilliant  light 
relieved  against  Cimmerian  darkness!  None 
of  us,  I  fancy,  understood  all  that  he  said  — 
yet  here  I  stand,  making  a  very  similar  ven- 
ture. 

I  risk  it  because  the  very  lectures  I  speak  of 
drew  —  they  brought  good  audiences.  There 
is,  it^ust  be  confessed,  a  curious  fascination  in 
hearingj^eepjthingsjalked  about,  even  though 
neither  we  nor  the  disputants  understand  them. 
We  get  the  problematic  thrill,  we  feel  the  pre- 
sence of  the  vastness.  Let  a  controversy  begin 
in  a  smoking-room  anywhere,  about  free-will 
or  God's  omniscience,  or  good  and  evil,  and 
see  how  every  one  in  the  place  pricks  up  his 
ears.  Philosophy's  results  concern  us  all  most 
vitally,  and  philosophy's  queerest  arguments 

5 


PRAGMATISM 

tickle  agreeably  our  sense  of  subtlety  and  in- 
genuity. 

Believing  in  philosophy  myself  devoutly,  and 
believing  also  that  a  kind  of  new  dawn  is  break- 
ing upon  us  philosophers,  I  feel  impelled,  fer 
fas  aut  nefas,  to  try  to  impart  to  you  some  news 
of  the  situation. 

Philosophy  is  at  once  the^most  sublime  and 
the  most  trivial  of  human  pursuits.  It  works 
in  the  minutest  crannies  and  it  opens  out  the 
widest  vistas.  It  *  bakes  no  bread,'  as  has  been 
said,  but  it  can  inspire  our  souls  with  courage; 
and  repugnant  as  its  manners,  its  doubting  and 
challenging,  its  quibbling  and  dialectics,  often 
are  to  common  people,  no  one  of  us  can  get 
along  without  the  far-flashing  beams  of  light 
it  sends  over  the  world's  perspectives.  These 
illuminations  at  least,  and  the  contrast-effects 
of  darkness  and  mystery  that  accompany  them, 
give  to  what  it  says  an  interest  that  is  much 
r^  more  than  professional. 

^iy^jMAAJi/\}^  The  history  of  philosophy  is  to  a  greai-e^tent 
U  ck}j^i^^^  that  of  a  certain  clash  of  human  temp£ra- 
'^     ^^       ments.    Undignified  as  such  a  treatment  may 


'^*tV 


THE    DILEMMA    IN    PHILOSOPHY 

seem  to  some  of  my  colleagues,  I  shall  have  to 
take  account  of  this  clash  and  explain  a  good 
many  of  the  divergencies  of  philosophers  by 
it.  Of  whatever  temperament  a  professional 
philosopher  is,  he  tries,  when  philosophizing, 
to  sink  the  fact  of  his  temperament.  Tempera- 
ment is  no  conventionally  recognized  reason, 
so  he  urges  impersonal  reasons  only  for  his  con- 
clusions. Yet  his  temperament  really  gives  him 
a_  stronger  bias  than  any  of  his  more  strictly 
objective  premises.  It  loads  the  evidence  for 
him  one  way  or  the  other,  making  for  a  more 
sentimental  or  a  more  hard-hearted  view  of 
the  universe,  just  as  this  fact  or  that  principle 
would.  He  trusts  his  temperament.  Wanting 
a  universe  that  suits  it,  he  believes  in  any  re- 
presentation of  the  universe  that  does  suit  it. 
He  feels  men  of  opposite  temper  to  be  out  of 
key  with  the  world's  character,  and  in  his  heart 
considers  them  incompetent  and  '  not  in  it,'  in 
the  philosophic  business,  even  though  they 
may  far  excel  him  in  dialectical  ability. 

Yet  in_the  forum  he  can  make  no  claim,  on 
the  bare  ground  of  his  temperament,  to  su- 

'*     7 


PRAGMATISM 

perior  discernment  or  authority.  There  arises 
thus  a  certain  insincerity  in  our  philosophic 
discussions :  the  potentest  of  all  our  premises  is 
never  mentionfid.  I  am  sure  it  would  contribute 
to  clearness  if  in  these  lectures  we  should  break 
this  rule  and  mention  it,  and  I  accordingly  feel 
free  to  do  so. 

Of  course  I  am  talking  here  of  very  posi- 
tively marked  men,  men  of  radical  idiosyn- 
cracy,  who  have  set  their  stamp  and  likeness 
on  philosophy  and  figure  in  its  history.  Plato, 
Locke,  Hegel,  Spencer,  are  such  temperamen- 
tal thinkers.  Most  of  us  have,  of  course,  no 
very  definite  intellectual  temperament,  we  are 
a  fixture  of  opposite  ingredients,  each  one 
present  very  moderately.  We  hardly  know  our 
own  preferences  in  abstract  matters;  SQme  ol 
u§  are  easily  talked  out  of  them,  and  end  by 
following  the  fashion  or  taking  up^with  Jhe  be- 
liefs of  the  most  impressive  philosopher  in  our 
neighborhood,  whoever  he  may  be.  But  the 
one  thing  that  has  counted  so  far  in  philosophy 
is  that  a  man  should  see  things,  see  them  straight 
in  his  own  peculiar  way,  and  be  dissatisfied  with 

8 


THE    DILEMMA    IN    PHILOSOPHY 

any  opposite  way  of  seeing  them.  There  is  no 
reason  to  suppose  that  this  strong  tempera- 
mental vision  is  from  now  onward  to  count  no 
longer  in  the  history  of  man's  beliefs.  Q^' 

Now  the  particular  difference  of  tempera'/Y^^^T*"*^'**^ 
ment  that  I  have  in  mind  in  making  these  re-  "^^^-W^^*"^^^"^ 
marks  is  one  that  has  counted  in  literature,  art, 
government,  and  manners  as  well  as  in  philo- 
sophy. In  manners  we  find  formalists  and  free- 
and-eas^  persons.  In  government,  authorita- 
rians and  anarchists.  In  literature,  purists  or_ 
academicals^  ancJLrealists.  In  art,  classics  and 
romantics.  You  recognize  these  contrasts  as 
familiar;  well,  in  philosophy  we  have  a  very 
^nailar  contrast  expressed  in  thp  pajy  pf  t^^rr^^ 
'  rationalist '  and  '  em  piri  oist  /  'empiricist' 
meaning^your  lover  of  facts  iii_all  their  crude 
variety,  'rationalist'  meaning  your  devotee  to 
abstracL§iid_eternal  princi^^  No  one  can 
live  an  hour  without  both  facts  and  principles, 
so  it  is  a  difference  rather  of  emphasis ;  yet  it 
breeds  antipathies  of  the  most  pungent  charac- 
ter between  those  who  lay  the  emphasis  differ- 
ently ;  and  we  shall  find  it  extraordinarily  con- 

9 


PRAGMATISM 

venient  to  express  a  certain  contrast  in  men's 
ways  of  taking  their  universe,  by  talking  of  the 
•'empiricist'  and  of  the  *  rationalist'  temper. 
These  terms  make  the  contrast  simple  and 
massive. 

More  simple  and  massive  than  are  usually 
the  men  of  whom  the  terms  are  predicated. 
For  every  sort  of  permutation  and  combination 
is  .possible  in  human  nature;  and  if  I  now  pro- 
ceed to  define  more  fully  what  I  have  in  mind 
when  I  sp^k  of  rationalists  and  empiricists,  by 
adding  to  each  of  those  titles  some  secondary 
qualifying  characteristics,  I  beg  you  to  regard 
my  conduct  as  to  a  certain  extent  arbitrary. 
Lgelect  types  of  combination  that  nature  offers 
v^ry  frequently,  but  by  no  means  uniformly, 
and  I  select  them  solely  for  their  convenience 
in  helping  me  to  my  ulterior  purpose  of  charac- 
terizing pragmatism.  Historically  we  find  the 
terms  'intellectualism'  and  'sensationalism' 
used  as  synonyms  of  'rationalism'  and  'em- 
piricism.' Well,  nature  seems  to  combine  most 
frequently  with  intellectualism  an  idealistic 
and  optimistic  tendency.    Empiricists  on  the 

10 


THE    DILEMMA    IN    PHILOSOPHY 

other  hand  are  not  uncommonly  materialistic, 
and  their  optimism  is  apt  to  be  decidedly  con- 
ditional and  tremulous.  Rationalism  is  always 
moBistic  It  starts  from  wholes  and  universals, 
and  makes  much  of  the  unity  of  things ^  Empir- 
icism  starts  from  the  parts,  and  makes  of  the 
whole  a  collection  —  is  not  averse  therefore  to 
calling  itself  pluralistic.  Rationalism  usually 
considers  itself  more  religious  than  empiricism, 
but  there  is  much  to  say  about  this  claim,  so  I 
merely  mention  it.  It  is  a  true  claim  w^hen  the 
individual  rationalist  is  what  is  called  a  man 
of  feeling,  and  w^hen  the  individual  empiricist 
prides  himself  on  being  hard-headed.  In  that 
case  the  rationalist  will  usually  also  be  in  favor 
of  what  is  called  free-will,  and  the  empiricist 
will  be  a  fatalist  —  I  use  the  terms  most  popu- 
larly current.  The  rationalist  finally  will  be  of 
dogmatic  temper  in  his  aflSrmations,  w^hile  the 
empiricist  may  be  more  sceptical  and  open  to 
discussion. 

I  will  write  these  traits  down  in  two  columns. 
I  think  you  will  practically  recognize  the  two 
types  of  mental  make-up  that  I  mean  if  I  head 

11 


*  tough-minded '  respectively. 


the  columns  by  the  titles  *  tender-minded '  and 


1^^^^  »  PRAGMATISM 

The  Tender-minded.  The  Tough-minded. 

Rationalistic  (going  by  Empiricist  (going  by 
*  principles ') ,  '  facts  ') , 

^i^^Ui*/^«ir?w^J)      Intellectualistic,  Sensationalistic,  i>^>itf»^c-^/^ 

i.^tj^^^ju^X^^r'^^  <  Idealistic,  Materialistic,    / 

^  Optimistic,  Pessimistic,     J 

Religious,  Irreligious, 

Free-willist,  Fatalistic, 

Monistic,  Pluralistic, 

Dogmatical.  Sceptical. 

Pray  postpone  for  a  moment  the  question 
whether  the  two  contrasted  mixtures  which  I 
have  written  down  are  each  inwardly  coherent 
and  self-consistent  or  not  —  I  shall  very  soon 
have  a  good  deal  to  say  on  that  point.  It  suf- 
fices for  our  immediate  purpose  that  tender- 
minded  and  tough-minded  people,  character- 
ized as  I  have  written  them  down,  do  both  exist. 
Each  of  you  probably  knows  some  well-marked 
example  of  each  type,  and  you  know  what  each 
example  thinks  of  the  example  on  the  other  side 
of  the  line.  They  have  a  low  opinion  of  each 
other.  Their  antagonism,  whenever  as  individ- 
uals their  temperaments  have  been  intense,  has 

12 


THE    DILEMMA    IN    PHILOSOPHY 

formed  in  all  ages  a  part  of  the  philosophic 
atmosphere  of  the  time.  It  forms  a  part  of 
the  philosophic  atmosphere  to-day.  The  tough 
think  of  the  tender  as  sentimentalists  and  soft- 
heads. The  tender  feel  the  tough  to  be  unre- 
fined, callous,  or  brutal.  Their  mutual  reaction 
is  very  much  like  that  that  takes  place  when 
Bostonian  tourists  mingle  with  a  population 
like  that  of  Cripple  Creek.  Each  type  believes 
the  other  to  be  inferior  to  itself ;  but  disdain 
in  the  one  case  is  mingled  with  amusement,  in 
the  other  it  has  a  dash  of  fear. 

Now%  as  I  have  already  insisted,  few  of  us 
are  tender-foot  Bostonians  pure  and  simple, 
and  few  are  typical  Rocky  Mountain  toughs, 
in  philosophy.  Most  of  us  have  a  hankering 
for  the  good  things  on  both  sides  of  the  line. 
Facts  are  good,  of  course  —  give  us  lots  of 
facts.  Principles  are  good  —  give  us  plenty  of 
principles.  The  world  is  indubitably  one  if  you 
look  at  it  in  one  way,  but  as  indubitably  is  it 
many,  if  you  look  at  it  in  another.  It  is  both  one 
and  many  —  let  us  adopt  a  sort  of  pluralistic 
monism.    Everything  of  course  is  necessarily 

13 


PRAGMATISM 

determined,  and  yet  of  course  our  wills  are  free: 
a  sort  of  free-will  determinism  is  the  true  philo- 
sophy. The  evil  of  the  parts  is  undeniable,  but 
the  whole  can't  be  evil :  so  practical  pessimism 
may  be  combined  with  metaphysical  optimism. 
And  so  forth  —  your  ordinary  philosophic 
layman  never  being  a  radical,  never  straight- 
ening out  his  system,  but  living  vaguely  in  one 
plausible  compartment  of  it  or  another  to  suit 
the  temptations  of  successive  hours. 

But  some  of  us  are  more  than  mere  laymen 
in  philosophy.  We  are  worthy  of  the  name  of 
amateur  athletes,  and  are  vexed  by  too  much 
inconsistency  and  vacillation  in  our  creed.  We 
cannot  preserve  a  good  intellectual  conscience 
so  long  as  we  keep  mixing  incompatibles  from 
opposite  sides  of  the  line. 

And  now  I  come  to  the  first  positively  im- 
portant point  which  I  wish  to  make.  Jiever 
'^re^as^many  rnen  of  a  decidedly  empiricist 
j^rocliyity  in  existence  as  there  are  at  the  pre- 
sent day.  Our  children,  one  may  say,  are  al- 
most born  scientific.  But  our  esteem  for  facts 
has  not  neutralized  in  us  all  religiousness.  It  is 

14 


THE    DILEMMA    IN    PHILOSOPHY 

itself  almost  religious.  Our  scientific  temper  is 
devout.  Now  take  a  man  of  this  type,  and  let 
him  be  also  a  philosophic  amateur,  unwilling 
to  mix  a  hodge-podge  system  after  the  fashion 
of  a  common  layman,  and  what  does  he  find  his 
situation  to  be,  in  this  blessed  year  of  our  Lord 
1906.?  He_  wants  facts;  he  wants  science; 
but  he  also  wants  a_religion.  And  being  an 
amateur  and  not  an  independent  originator  in 
philosophy  he  naturally  looks  for  guidance  to 
the  experts  and  professionals  whom  he  finds 
already  in  the  field.  A  very  large  number  of 
you  here  present,  possibly  a  majority  of  you, 
are  amateurs  of  just  this  sort.  {^ 

Now  what  kinds  of  philosophy  do  you  find  )iXj}^  Kjuun^ 
actually  offered  to  meet  your  need .?  You  find^^     '.  ^^.^w 
an  empirical  philosophy  that  is  not  religious  jLjr(j'  om-A 
enmigh^and_a  religious  philosophy  that  is  not   huJjCa^^^-^ 
empirical  enough  for  your  purpose.  If  you  look  ^ 

to  the  quarter  where  facts  are  most  considered 
you  find  the  whole  tough-minded  program  in 
operation,  and  the  'conflict  between  science 
and  religion'  in  full  blast.  Either  it  is  that 
Rocky  Mountain  tough  of  a  Haeckel  with  his 

15 


PRAGMATISM 

materialistic  monism,  his  ether-god  and  his 

jest  at  your  God  as  a  'gaseous  vertebrate';  or 

it  is  Spencer  treating  the  world's   history  as 

a  redistribution  of  matter  and  motion  solely, 

and  bowing  religion  politely  out  at  the  front 

door: — she  may  indeed  continue  to  exist,  but 

^  she  must  never  show  her  face  inside  the  temple. 

^  ,  Eor^  hundred  and  fifty  years  past  the  pro- 

■^LMlx^/  6ciw^  egress  of  science  has  seemed  to  mean  the  enlarge- 

^ui-tt  huM^  ment  of  the  material  universe  and  the  dirninu- 

W\/^^i^-<r>J~~->,     tion  of  man's  importance.  The  result  is  what 

'^■^^/j\  one  may  call  the  growthj^i^^atumhsticj^r^ 

tivistic  feeling*  Man  is  no  lawgiver  to  nature, 
he  is  an  absorber.  She  it  is  who  stands  firm; 
he  it  is  who  must  accommodate  himself.  Let 
him  record  truth,  inhuman  though  it  be,  and 
submit  to  it!  The  romantic  spontaneity  and 
courage  are  gone,  the  vision  is  materialistic 
and  depressing.  Ideals  appear  as  inert  by- 
products of  physiology;  what  is  higher  is 
explained  by  what  is  lower  and  treated  for- 
ever as  a  case  of  *  nothing  but'  —  nothing  but 
something  else  of  a  quite  inferior  sort.  You 
get,  in  short,  a  material'stic  universe,  in  which 

16 


THE    DILEMMA    IN    PHILOSOPHY 

only  the  tough-minded   find  themselves  con- 
genially at  home. 

If  now,  on  the  other  hand,  you  turn  to  the 
religious  quarter  for  consolation,  and  take 
counsel  of  the  tender-minded  philosophies, 
what  do  you  find  ? 

Religious  philosophy  in  our  day  and  gener- 
ation is,  among  us  English-reading  people,  of 
two  main  types.  One  of  these  is  more  radical 
and  aggressive,  the  other  has  more  the  air  of_ 
fighting  a  slow  retreat.  By  the  more  radical 
wing  of  religious  philosophy  I  mean  the  so- 
called  transcendental  idealism  of  the  Angla- 
Hegelian  school,  the  philosophy  of  such  men 
as  Green,  the  Cairds,  Bosanquet,  and  Royce. 
This  philosophy  has  greatly  influenced  the  more 
studious  members  of  our  protestant  ministry. 
It  is  pantheistic,  and  undoubtedly  it  has  al- 
ready blunted  the  edge  of  the  traditional  theism 
in  protestantism  at  large. 

That  ^theism  remains,  however.  It  is  the 
lineal  descendant,  through  one  stage  of  conces- 
sion after  another,  of  the  dogmatic  scholastic 
theism  still  taught  rigorously  in  the  seminaries 

17 


PRAGMATISM 

of  the  catholic  church.  For  a  long  time  it  used 
to  be  called  among  us  the  philosophy  of  the 
Scottish  school.  It  is  what  I  meant  by  the 
philosophy  that  has  the  air  of  fighting  a  slow 
retreat.  Between  the  encroachments  of  the 
Hegelians  and  other  philosophers  of  the  *  Abso- 
lute,' on  the  one  hand,  and  those  of  the  scienti- 
fic evolutionists  and  agnostics,  on  the  other,  the 
men  that  give  us  this  kind  of  a  philosophy, 
James  Martineau,  Professor  Bowne,  Professor 
Ladd  and  others,  must  feel  themselves  rather 
tightly  squeezed.  Fair-minded  and  candid  as 
you  like,  this  philosophy  is  not  radical  in  tem- 
per. It  is  eclectic,  a  thing  of  compromises,  that 
seeks  a  modus  vivendi  above  all  things.  Ij  a.c- 
vcepts  the  facts  of  Darwinism,  the  facts  of  cere- 
bral physiology,  but  it  does  nothing  active  jor 
enthusiastic  with  them.  It  lacks  the  victorious 
and  aggressive  note.  It  lacks  prestige  in  con- 
sequence; whereas  absolutism  has  a  certain 
prestige  due  to  the  more  radical  style  of  it. 

These  two  systems  are  what  you  have  to 
choose  between  if  you  turn  to  the  tender-minded  _ 
school.  And  if  you  are  ^he  lovers  of  facts  I  have 

18 


THE    DILEMMA    IN    PHILOSOniY^ 

supposed  you  to  be,  you  find  the  trail  of  ihe^^^TU^^^^ 
serpent  of  rationalism,  of  intellectualism,  overl^iJ|i,^u>K^^, 
everything  that  lies  on  that  side  of  the  line. 
You  escape  indeed  the  materialism  that  goes 
with  the  reigning  empiricism ;  but  you  pay  for 
your  escape  by  losing  contact  with  the  concrete 
parts  of  life.  The  more  absolutistic  philo- 
sophers dwell  on  so  high  a  level  of  abstraction 
that  they  never  even  try  to  come  down.  The 
absolute  mind  which  they  offer  us,  the  mind 
that  makes  our  universe  by  thinking  it,  might, 
for  aught  they  show  us  to  the  contrary,  have 
made  any  one  of  a  million  other  universes  just 
as  well  as  this.  You  can  deduce  no  single  act- 
ual particular  from  the  notion  of  it.  It  is  com- 
patible with  any  state  of  things  whatever  being 
true  here  below.  And  the  theistic  God  is  almost 
as  sterile  a  principle.  You  have  to  go  to  the 
world  which  he  has  created  to  get  any  inkling 
of  his  actual  character:  he  is  the  kind  of  god 
that  has  once  for  all  made  that  kind  of  a  world. 
The  God  of  the  theistic  writers  lives  on  as  purely 
abstract  heights  as  does  the  Absolute.  Abso- 
lutism has  a  certain  sweep  and  dash  about  it, 

19 


PRAGMATISM 

while  the  usual  theism  is  more  insipid,  but  both 
are  equally  remote  and  vacuous.  What  you 
want  is  a  philosophy  that  will  not  only  exercise 
your  powers  of  intellectual  abstraction,  but  that 
will  make  some  positive  connexion  with  this 
actual  world  of  finite  human  lives. 

You  want  a  system  that  will  combine  both 
hings,  the  scientific  loyalty  to  facts  and  will- 
ingness to  take  account  of  them,  the  spirit  of 
adaptation  and  accommodation,  in  short,  but 
also  the  old  confidence  in  human  values  and 
the  resultant  spontaneity,  whether  of  the  relig- 
ious or  of  the  romantic  type.  And_this  is  then 
vour  dilemma:  you  find  the  two  parts  of  your 
quaesitum  hopelessly  separated.  You  find  em- 
piricism with  inhumanism  and  irreligion;  or 
else  you  find  a  rationalistic  philosophy  that 
indeed  may  call  itself  religious,  but  that  keeps 
out  of  all  definite  touch  with  concrete  facts 
and  joys  and  sorrows. 

I  am  not  sure  how  many  of  you  live  close 
enough  to  philosophy  to  realize  fully  what  I 
mean  by  this  last  reproach,  so  I  will  dwell  a  lit- 
tle longer  on  that  unreality  in  all  rationalistic 

20 


THE    DILEMMA    IN    PHILOSOPHY  -ZT^ 

systems^y  which  your  serious  believer  in  facts  ^ 

is  so  apt  to  feel  repelled. 

I  wish  that  I  had  saved  the  first  couple  of 
pages  of  a  thesis  which  a  student  handed  me 
a  year  or  two  ago.  They  illustrated  my  point  so 
clearly  that  I  am  sorry  I  can  not  read  them  to 
you  now\  This  young  man,  who  was  a  gradu- 
ate of  some  Western  college,  began  by  saying 
that  he  had  always  taken  for  granted  that  when 
you  entered  a  philosophic  classroom  you  had  to 
open  relations  with  a  universe  entirely  distinct 
from  the  one  you  left  behind  you  in  the  street. 
The  two  were  supposed,  he  said,  to  have  so 
little  to  do  with  each  other,  that  you  could 
not  possibly  occupy  your  mind  with  them  at 
the  same  time.  The  world  of  concrete  personal 
experiences  to  which  the  street  belongs  is  multi- 
tudinous beyond  imagination,  tangled,  muddy, 
painful   and  perplexed.  The  world  to  which 
your  philosophy-professor   introduces   you   is 
simple,  clean  and  noble.  The  contradictions  of 
real  life  are  absent  from  it.  Its  architecture  is 
classic.  Principles  of  reason  trace  its  outlines, 
logical  necessities  cement  its  parts.   Purity  and 

21 


PRAGMATISM 

dignity  are  what  it  most  expresses.  It  is  a  kind 
of  marble  temple  shining  on  a  hill. 

In  point  of  fact  it  is  far  less  an  account  of  this 
actual  world  than  a  clear  addition  built  upon 
it,  a  classic  sanctuary  in  which  the  rationalist 
fancy  may  take  refuge  from  the  intolerably  con- 
fused^and  gothic  character  which  mere  facts 
present.  It  is  no  explanation  of  our  concrete 
universe,  it  is  another  thing  altogether,  a  sub- 
stitute for  it,  a  remedy,  a  way  of  escape. 

Its  temperament,  if  I  may  use  the  word  tem- 
perament here,  is  utterly  alien  to  the  temper- 
ament of  existence  in  the  concrete.  Rejinement 
is  what  characterizes  our  intellectualist  philo- 
sophies^ They  exquisitely  satisfy  that  craving 
for  a  refined  object  of  contemplation  which  is 
so  powerful  an  appetite  of  the  mijid.  But  I  ask 
you  in  all  seriousness  to  look  abroad  on  this 
colossal  universe  of  concrete  facts,  on  their 
awful  bewilderments,  their  surprises  and  cruel- 
ties, on  the  wildness  which  they  show,  and  then 
to  tell  me  whether  'refined'  is  the  one  inevit- 
able descriptive  adjective  that  springs  to  your 

lips. 

22 


THE    DILEMMA    IN    PHILOSOPHY 

Refinement  has  its  place  in  things,  true 
enough.  But  a^  philosophy  that  hreathes^^out 
nothing  but  refinement  will  never  satisfy  the 
epapiricist  temper  of  min.d.  It  will  seem  rather 
a  monument  of  artificiality.  So  we  find  men  of 
science  preferring  to  turn  their  backs  on  meta-, 
physics  as  on  something  altogether  cloistered 
and  spectral,  and  practical  men  shaking  phiK 
osophy's  dust  off  their  feet  and  following  the 
call  of  the  w^ild.  _ 

Truly  there  is  something  a  little  ghastly  in  f^^jh^*' 
the  satisfaction  wdth  which  a  pure  but  unreal  /)* «    •U-    ^^ 
system  will  fill  a  rationalist  mind.  Leibnitz  w^as  ^^^\ji    \)\ 
a  rationalist  mind,  wath  infinitely  more  interest   ^j^*^ 
in  facts  than  most  rationalist  minds  can  show. 
Yet  if  you  wish  for  superficiality  incarnate, 
you  have  only  to  read  that  charmingly  wTit- 
ten  '  Theodicee  '  of  his,  in  which  he  sought  to 
justify  the  ways  of  God  to  man,  and  to  prove 
that  the  world  we  live  in  is  the  best  of  possible 
worlds.    Let  me  quote  a  specimen  of  what  I 
mean. 

Among    other    obstacles   to    his   optimistic 
philosophy,  it  falls  to  Leibnitz  to  consider  the 

23 


PRAGMATISM 

number  of  the  eternally  damned.  That  it  is 
infinitely  greater,  in  our  human  case,  than  that 
of  those  saved,  he  assumes  as  a  premise  from 
the  theologians,  and  then  proceeds  to  argue  in 
this  way.  Even  then,  he  says : 

"The  evil  will  appear  as  almost  nothing  in 
comparison  with  the  good,  if  we  once  consider 
the  real  magnitude  of  the  City  of  God.  Coelius 
Secundus  Curio  has  written  a  little  book,  'De 
Amplitudine  Regni  Coelestis,'  which  was  re- 
printed not  long  ago.  But  he  failed  to  compass 
the  extent  of  the  kingdom  of  the  heavens.  The 
ancients  had  small  ideas  of  the  works  of  God. 
...  It  seemed  to  them  that  only  our  earth 
had  inhabitants,  and  even  the  notion  of  our  an- 
tipodes gave  them  pause.  The  rest  of  the  world 
for  them  consisted  of  some  shining  globes  and 
a  few  crystalline  spheres.  But  to-day,  whatever 
be  the  limits  that  we  may  grant  or  refuse  to  the 
Universe  we  must  recognize  in  it  a  countless 
number  of  globes,  as  big  as  ours  or  bigger, 
which  have  just  as  much  right  as  it  has  to 
support  rational  inhabitants,  tho  it  does  not 
follow  that  these  need  all  be  men.  Our  earth  is 

24 


THE    DILEMMA    IN    PHILOSOPHY 

only  one  among  the  six  principal  satellites  of 
our  sun.  As  all  the  fixed  stars  are  suns,  one  sees 
how  small  a  place  among  visible  things  our 
earth  takes  up,  since  it  is  only  a  satellite  of  one 
among  them.  Now  all  these  suns7?2a?/be  inha- 
bited by  none  but  happy  creatures;  and  nothing 
obliges  us  to  believe  that  the  number  of  damned 
persons  is  very  great;  for  a  very  jew  instances 
and  samples  suffice  for  the  utility  which  good 
draws  from  evil.  Moreover,  since  there  is  no 
reason  to  suppose  that  there  are  stars  every- 
where, may  there  not  be  a  great  space  beyond 
the  region  of  the  stars.?  And  this  immense 
space,  surrounding  all  this  region,  .  .  .  may 
be  replete  with  happiness  and  glory.  .  .  . 
What  now  becomes  of  the  consideration  of  our 
Earth  and  of  its  denizens  ?  Does  it  not  dwindle 
to  something  incomparably  less  than  a  physical 
point,  since  our  Earth  is  but  a  point  compared 
with  the  distance  of  the  fixed  stars.  Thus  the 
part  of  the  Universe  which  we  know,  being 
almost  lost  in  nothingness  compared  with  that 
w^hich  is  unknown  to  us,  but  which  we  are  yet 
obliged  to  admit;    and  all  the  evils  that  we 

25 


PRAGMATISM 

know  lying  in  this  almost-nothing;  it  follows 
that  the  evils  may  be  almost-nothing  in  com- 
parison with  the  goods  that  the  Universe  con- 
tains." 

Leibnitz  continues  elsewhere : 

'*  There  is  a  kind  of  justice  which  aims 
neither  at  the  amendment  of  the  criminal,  nor 
at  furnishing  an  example  to  others,  nor  at  the 
reparation  of  the  injury.  This  justice  is  founded 
in  pure  fitness,  which  finds  a  certain  satisfac- 
tion in  the  expiation  of  a  wicked  deed.  The 
Socinians  and  Hobbes  objected  to  this  punitive 
justice,  which  is  properly  vindictive  justice,  and 
which  God  has  reserved  for  himself  at  many 
junctures.  ...  It  is  always  founded  in  the 
fitness  of  things,  and  satisfies  not  only  the 
offended  party,  but  all  wise  lookers-on,  even  as 
beautiful  music  or  a  fine  piece  of  architecture 
satisfies  a  well-constituted  mind.  It  is  thus  that 
the  torments  of  the  damned  continue,  even  tho 
they  serve  no  longer  to  turn  any  one  away  from 
sin,  and  that  the  rewards  of  the  blest  continue, 
even  tho  they  confirm  no  one  in  good  ways. 
The  damned  draw  to   themselves   ever   new 

26 


THE    DILEMMA    IN    PHILOSOPHY 

penalties  by  their  continuing  sins,  and  the 
blest  attract  ever  fresh  joys  by  their  unceasing 
progress  in  good.  Both  facts  are  founded  on 
the  principle  of  fitness,  .  .  .  for  God  has  made 
all  things  harmonious  in  perfection  as  I  have 
already  said." 

Leibnitz's  feeble  grasp  of  reality  is  too  obvi- 
ous to  need  comment  from  me.  It  is  evident 
that  no  realistic  image  of  the  experience  of  a 
damned  soul  had  ever  approached  the  portals 
of  his  mind.  Nor  had  it  occurred  to  him  that 
the  smaller  is  the  number  of  '  samples '  of  the 
genus  'lost-soul'  whom  God  throws  as  a  sop 
to  the  eternal  fitness,  the  more  unequitably 
grounded  is  the  glory  of  the  blest.  What  he 
gives  us  is  a  cold  literary  exercise,  whose  cheer-  /J\ 
ful  substance  even  hell-fire  does  not  warm.  a  »-'  •  fljl. 

And  do  not  tell  me  that  to  show  the  shallow-  /^^  '>^!r    - 
ness  of  rationalist  philosophizing  I  have  had  ^^^^^^^\^^^ 
to  go  back  to  a  shallow  wigpated  age.  The opti-  ^itc^^-'^'^^^ 
mism  of  present-day  rationalism  sounds  just 
Rs^hgJ]i:iS£  to  th^  fp<"t-l^ving  min*^    The  actual 
universe  is  a  thing  wide  open,  but  rationalism 
makes  systems,  and  systems  must  be  closed. 

27 


PRAGMATISM 

For  men  in  practical  life  perfection  is  something 
far  off  and  still  in  process  of  achievement.  This 
for  rationalism  is  but  the  illusion  of  the  finite 
and  relative:  the  absolute  ground  of  things  is 
a  perfection  eternally  complete. 

I  find  a  fine  example  of  revolt  against  the  airy 
and  shallow  optimism  of  current  religious  phil- 
osophy in  a  publication  of  that  valiant  an- 
archistic writer  Morrison  I.  Swift.  Mr.  Swift's 
anarchism  goes  a  little  farther  than  mine  does, 
but  I  confess  that  I  sympathize  a  good  deal, 
and  some  of  you,  I  know,  will  sympathize 
heartily  with  his  dissatisfactionwith  the  ideal- 
istic  optimisms  now  in  vofflie.  He  begins  his 
pamphlet  on  '  Human  Submission '  w  ith  a  series 
of  city  reporter's  items  from  newspapers  (sui- 
cides, deaths  from  starvation,  and  the  like) 
as  specimens  of  our  civilized  regime.  For 
instance : 

**  After  trudging  through  the  snow  from  one 
end  of  the  city  to  the  other  in  the  vain  hope  of 
securing  employment,  and  with  his  wife  and 
six  children  without  food  and  ordered  to  leave 
their  home  in  an  upper  east-side  tenement- 


THE    DILEMMA    IN    PHILOSOPHY 

house  because  of  non-payment  of  rent,  John 
Corcoran,  a  clerk,  to-day  ended  his  life  by 
drinking  carbolic  acid.  Corcoran  lost  his  po- 
sition three  weeks  ago  through  illness,  and 
during  the  period  of  idleness  his  scanty  savings 
disappeared.  Yesterday  he  obtained  work 
with  a  gang  of  city  snow-shovelers,  but  he  was 
too  weak  from  illness,  and  was  forced  to  quit 
after  an  hour's  trial  with  the  shovel.  Then 
the  weary  task  of  looking  for  employment  was 
again  resumed.  Thoroughly  discouraged, 
Corcoran  returned  to  his  home  last  night  to 
find  his  wife  and  children  without  food  and 
the  notice  of  dispossession  on  the  door.  On 
the  following  morning  he  drank  the  poison. 

"The  records  of  many  more  such  cases  lie 
before  me  [Mr.  Swift  goes  on] ;  an  encyclopedia 
might  easily  be  filled  with  their  kind.  These 
few  I  cite  as  an  interpretation  of  the  Universe. 
'We  are  aware  of  the  presence  of  God  in  his 
world,' says  a  writer  in  a  recent  English  review. 
[The  very  presence  of  ill  in  the  temporal  order 
is  the  condition  of  the  perfection  of  the  eternal 
order,  writes  Professor  Royce  (The  World  and 

29 


PRAGMATISM 

the  Individual,  ii,  385) .]  '  The  Absolute  is  the 
richer  for  every  discord  and  for  all  the  diversity 
which  it  embraces,'  says  F.  H.  Bradley  (Ap- 
pearance and  Reality,  204).  He  means  that 
these  slain  men  make  the  universe  richer,  and 
that  is  philosophy.  But  while  Professors  Royce 
and  Bradley  and  a  whole  host  of  guileless  thor- 
oughfed  thinkers  are  unveiling  Reality  and  the 
Absolute  and  explaining  away  evil  and  pain, 
this  is  the  condition  of  the  only  beings  known  to 
us  anywhere  in  the  universe  with  a  developed 
consciousness  of  what  the  universe  is.  What 
these  people  experience  is  Reality.  It  gives  us 
an  absolute  phase  of  the  universe.  It  is  the  per- 
sonal experience  of  those  best  qualified  in  our 
circle  of  knowledge  to  have  experience,  to  tell  us 
what  is.  Now  what  does  thinking  about  the  ex- 
perience of  these  persons  come  to,  compared  to 
directly  and  personally  feeling  it  as  they  feel  it  ? 
The  philosophers  are  dealing  in  shades,  while 
those  who  live  and  feel  know  truth.  And  the 
mind  of  mankind  —  not  yet  the  mind  of  phil- 
osophers and  of  the  proprietary  class — but  of 
the  great  mass  of  the  silently  thinking  men  and 

30 


; 

) 


THE    DILEMMA    IN    rillLOSOPIIY 

feeling  men,  is  coming  to  this  view.  They  are 
judging  the  universe  as  they  have  hitherto  per- 
mitted the  hierophants  of  religion  and  learning 
to  judge  them,  .  .  . 

**  This    Cleveland  workingman,  killing  his 
children  and  himself  [another  of  the  cited  cases] 
is  one  of  the  elemental  stupendous  facts  of  this 
modern  world  and  of  this  universe.  It  cannot 
be  glozed  over  or  minimized  away  by  all  the 
treatises  on  God,  and  Love,  and  Being,  help- 
lessly existing  in  their  monumental  vacuity. 
This  is  one  of  the  simple  irreducible  elements 
of  this  world's  life,  after  millions  of  years  of 
opportunity  and  twenty  centuries  of  Christ.  It 
is  in  the  mental  world  what  atoms  or  sub-atoms 
are  in  the  physical,  primary,  indestructible. 
And  what  it  blazons  to  man  is  the  imposture  of 
all  philosophy  which  does  not  see  in  such  events 
the  consummate  factor  of  all    conscious  ex- 
perience. These  facts  invincibly  prove  religion 
a  nullity.  Man  will  not  give  religion  two  thou- 
sand centuries  or  twenty  centuries  more  to  try 
itself  and  waste  human  time.   Its  time  is  up; 
its  probation  is  ended;  its  own  record  ends  it. 

31 


PRAGMATISM 

Mankind  has  not  aeons  and  eternities  to  spare 
for  trying  out  discredited  systems."^ 

Such  is  the  reaction  of  an  empiricist  mind 
upon  the  rationalist  bill  of  fare.  It  is  an  abso- 
lute *No,  I  thank  you.'  'Religion,'  says  Mr. 
Swift,  'is  like  a  sleep-walker  to  whom  actual 
things  are  blank.'  And  such,  tho  possibly  less 
tensely  charged  with  feeling,  is  the  verdict  of 
every  seriously  inquiring  amateur  in  philo- 
sophy to-day  who  turns  to  the  philosophy-pro- 
fessors for  the  wherewithal  to  satisfy  the  ful- 
ness of  his  nature's  needs.  Empiricist  writers 
give  him  a  materialism,  rationalists  give  him 
something  religious,  but  to  that  religion  'actual 
things  are  blank.'  He  becomes  thus  the  judge 
of  us  philosophers.  Tender  or  tough,  he  finds 
us  wanting.  None  of  us  may  treat  his  verdicts 
disdainfully,  for  after  all,  his  is  the  typically 
perfect  mind,  the  mind  the  sum  of  whose  de- 
mands is  greatest,  the  mind  whose  criticisms 
and  dissatisfactions  are  fatal  in  the  long  run. 

It  is  at  this  point  that  my  own  solution  begins 

^  Morrison  I.  Swift,  Human  Stibmisnon,  Part  Second,  Philadelphia, 
Liberty  Press,  1905,  pp.  4-10. 

82 


THE    DILEMMA    IN    PHILOSOPH Y^^^ti::^  ^ 

to  appear.  I  offer  the  oddly-namedthin^  F"^g- 
matism  as  a  philosophy  that  can  satisfy  both 
kinds  of  demand^J[t^can  remain  religious  like 
the  rationalisms,  but  at  the  same  time,  like  the 
empiricisms,  it  can  preserve  the  richest  inti- 
nj^c^withjacts.  I  hope  I  may  be  able  to  leave 
many  of  you  with  as  favorable  an  opinion  of  it 
as  I  preserve  myself.  Yet,  as  I  am  near  the  end 
of  my  hour,  I  will  not  introduce  pragmatism 
bodily  now.  I  will  begin  with  it  on  the  stroke 
of  the  clock  next  time.  I  prefer  at  the  present 
moment  to  return  a  little  on  what  I  have  said. 
^\i  any  of  you  here  are  professional  philo- 
sophers, and  some  of  you  I  know  to  be  such, 
you  will  doubtless  have  felt  my  discourse  so  far 
to  have  been  crude  in  an  unpardonable,  nay,  in 
an  almost  incredible  degree.  Tender-minded 
and  tough-minded,  what  a  barbaric  disjunction! 
And,  in  general,  when  philosophy  is  all  com- 
pacted of  delicate  intellectualities  and  subtle- 
ties and  scrupulosities,  and  when  every  possible 
sort  of  combination  and  transition  obtains 
within  its  bounds,  what  a  brutal  caricature  and 
reduction  of  highest  things  to  the  lowest  possi- 

33 


PRAGMATISM 

ble  expression  is  it  to  represent  its  field  of  con- 
flict as  a  sort  of  rough-and-tumble  fight  between 
two  hostile  temperaments!  What  a  childishly 
external  view!  And  again,  how  stupid  it  is  to 
treat  the  abstractness  of  rationalist  systems  as 
a  crime,  and  to  damn  them  because  they  offer 
themselves  as  sanctuaries  and  places  of  escape, 
rather  than  as  prolongations  of  the  world  of 
facts.  Are  not  all  our  theories  just  remedies 
and  places  of  escape  ?  And,  if  philosophy  is  to 
be  religious,  how  can  she  be  anything  else  than 
a  place  of  escape  from  the  crassness  of  reality's 
surface  ?  What  better  thing  can  she  do  than 
raise  us  out  of  our  animal  senses  and  show  us 
another  and  a  nobler  home  for  our  minds  in 
that  great  framework  of  ideal  principles  sub- 
tending all  reality,  which  the  intellect  divines  ? 
How  can  principles  and  general  views  ever  be 
anything  but  abstract  outlines  ?  Was  Cologne 
cathedral  built  without  an  architect's  plan  on 
paper  ?  Is  refinement  in  itself  an  abomination  ? 
Is  concrete  rudeness  the  only  thing  that's 
true? 

Believe  me,  I  feel  the  full  force  of  the  indict- 

34 


THE    DILEMMA    IN    PHILOSOPHY  t^^^^ 

ment.  The  picture  I  have  given  is  indeed  mon-  ,     , 
strously  over-simplified  and  rude.  But  like  all  ^  •      yT 
abstractions,  it  will  prove  to  have  its  use.  If/^, 
philosophers  can  treat  the  life  of  the  universe  ^^^^f^^<^^*^^ 
abstractly,  they  must  not  complain  of  an  ab- 
stract treatment  of  the  life  of  philosophy  itself. 
In  point  of  fact  the  picture  I  have  given  is,  how- 
ever coarse  and  sketchy,  literally  true.   Tern-  [j 
peraments  w^ith  their  cravings  and  refusals  do 
determine  men  in  their  philosophies,  and  always  f 
will.  The  details  of  systems  may  be  reasoned 
out  piecemeal,  and  when  the  student  is  work- 
ing at  a  system,  he  may  often  forget  the  for- 
est for  the  single  tree.  But  when  the  labor  is 
accomplished,  the  mind   always  performs  its 
big  summarizing  act,  and  the  system  forthwith 
stands  over  against  one  like  a  living  thing,  with 
that  strange  simple  note  of  individuality  which 
haunts  our  memory,  like  the  wraith  of  the  man, 
when  a  friend  or  enemy  of  ours  is  dead. 

Not  only  Walt  Whitman  could  write  'who 
touches  this  book  touches  a  man.'  The  books 
of  all  the  great  philosophers  are  like  so  many 
men.  Our  sense  of  an  essential  personal  iSavor 

35 


PRAGMATISM 

in  each  one  of  them,  typical  but  indescribable, 
is  the  finest  fruit  of  our  own  accomplished  phil- 
osophic education.  What  the  system  pretends 
to  be  is  a  picture  of  the  great  universe  of  God. 
What  it  is,  —  and  oh  so  flagrantly!  —  is  the 
revelation  of  how  intensely  odd  the  personal 
flavor  of  some  fellow  creature  is.  Once  reduced 
to  these  terms  (and  all  our  philosophies  get  re- 
duced to  them  in  minds  made  critical  by  learn- 
ing) our  commerce  with  the  systems  reverts  to 
the  informal,  to  the  instinctive  human  reaction 
of  satisfaction  or  dislike.  We  grow  as  peremp- 
tory in  our  rejection  or  admission,  as  w^hen  a 
person  presents  himself  as  a  candidate  for  our 
favor;  our  verdicts  are  couched  in  as  simple 
adjectives  of  praise  or  dispraise.  We  measure 
the  total  character  of  the  universe  as  we  feel  it, 
against  the  flavor  of  the  philosophy  proffered 
us,  and  one  word  is  enough. 

*Statt  der  lebendigen  Natur,'  we  say,  *da 
Gott  die  Menschen  schuf  hinein,' — that  nebu- 
lous concoction,  that  wooden,  that  straight- 
laced  thing,  that  crabbed  artificiality,  that 
musty  schoolroom   product,  that   sick   man's 

36 


THE    DILEMMA    IN    PHILOSOPHY 

dream!  Away  with  it.  Away  with  all  of  them! 
Impossible!  Impossible! 

Our  work  over  the  details  of  his  system  is 
indeed  what  gives  us  our  resultant  impression 
of  the  philosopher,  but  it  is  on  the  resultant 
impression  itself  that  we  react.  Expertness  in 
philosophy  is  measured  by  the  definiteness  of 
our  summarizing  reactions,  by  the  immediate 
perceptive  epithet  with  which  the  expert  hits 
such  complex  objects  off.  But  great  expertness 
is  not  necessary  for  the  epithet  to  come.  Few 
people  have  definitely  articulated  philosophies 
of  their  own.  But  almost  every  one  has  his  own 
peculiar  sense  of  a  certain  total  character  in  the 
universe,  and  of  the  inadequacy  fully  to  match 
it  of  the  peculiar  systems  that  he  know  s.  They 
don't  just  cover  his  world.  One  will  be  too 
dapper,  another  too  pedantic,  a  third  too  much 
of  a  job-lot  of  opinions,  a  fourth  too  morbid,  and 
a  fifth  too  artificial,  or  what  not.  At  any  rate  he 
and  we  know  off-hand  that  such  philosophies 
are  out  of  plumb  and  out  of  key  and  out  of 
'whack,'  and  have  no  business  to  speak  up  in 
the  universe's  name.  Plato,  Locke,  Spinoza, 

37 


PRAGMATISM 

Mill,  Caird,  Hegel  —  I  prudently  avoid  names 
nearer  home !  —  I  am  sure  that  to  many  of  you, 
my  hearers,  these  names  are  little  more  than 
reminders  of  as  many  curious  personal  ways  of 
falling  short.  It  would  be  an  obvious  absurdity 
if  such  ways  of  taking  the  universe  were  act- 
ually true. 

We  philosophers  have  to  reckon  with  such 
feelings  on  your  part.  In  the  last  resort,  I  re- 
peat, it  will  be  by  them  that  all  our  philosophies 
shall  ultimately  be  judged.  The  finally  victori- 
ous way  of  looking  at  things  will  be  the  most 
completely  impressive  way  to  the  normal  run  of 
minds. 

Ongword  mor^^:^ namely  about^ilosophies 
ligcessarnyJb^eJng-abstr^a^tjoiUli^  There  are 
outlines  and  outlines,  outlines  of  buildings 
that  are  fat,  conceived  in  the  cube  by  their 
planner,  and  outlines  of  buildings  invented  flat 
on  paper,  with  the  aid  of  ruler  and  compass. 
These  remain  skinny  and  emaciated  even  when 
set  up  in  stone  and  mortar,  and  the  outline 
already  suggests  that  result.  An  outline  in  it- 
self is  meagre,  truly,  but  h  does  not  necessarily 

38 


THE    DILEMMA    IN    PHILOSOPHY     ^ 

suggest  a  meagre  thing.  It  is  the  essential  mea*  yj  .  rj^<^ 
greness  of  what  is  suggested  by  the  usual  ration-  ^  &j2.tu%ejt> 
alistic  philosophies  that  moves  empiricists  to 
their  gesture  of  rejection.  The  case  of  Herbert 
S£ence2L&  system  is  much  to  the  point  here. 
Rationalists  feel  his  fearful  array  of  insuffi- 
ciencies. His  dry  schoolmaster  temperament, 
the  hurdy-gurdy  monotony  of  him,  his  prefer- 
ence for  cheap  makeshifts  in  argument,  his  lack 
of  education  even  in  mechanical  principles,  and 
in  general  the  vagueness  of  all  his  fundamental 
ideas,  his  whole  system  wooden,  as  if  knocked 
together  out  of  cracked  hemlock  boards — and 
yet  the  half  of  England  wants  to  bury  him  in 
Westminster  Abbey. 

Why.?  Why  does  Spencer  call  out  so  much 
reverence  in  spite  of  his  weakness  in  rational- 
istic eyes  ?  Why  should  so  many  educated  men 
who  feel  that  weakness,  you  and  I  perhaps, 
wish  to  see  him  in  the  Abbey  notw  ithstanding  ? 

Simply  because  we  feel  his  heart  to  be  in  the 
right  place  philosophically.  His  principles  may 
be  all  skin  and  bone,  but  at  any  rate  his  books 
try  to  mould  themselves  upon  the  particular 

39 


PRAGMATISM 

shape  of  this  particular  world's  carcase.  The 
noise  of  facts  resounds  through  all  his  chapters, 
the  citations  of  fact  never  cease,  he  emphasizes 
facts,  turns  his  face  towards  their  quarter;  and 
that  is  enough.  It  means  the  right  kind  of  thing 
for  the  empiricist  mind. 

The  pragmatistic  philosophy  of  which  I  hope 
to  begin  talking  in  my  next  lecture  preserves 
as  cordial  a  relation  with  facts,  and,  unlike 
Spencer's  philosophy,  it  neither  begins  nor  ends 
by  turning  positive  religious  constructions  out 
of  doors  —  it  treats  them  cordially  as  well. 

I  hope  I  may  lead  you  to  find  it  just  the  medi- 
ating way  of  thinking  that  you  require. 


II 

WHAT  PRAGMATISM  MEANS 


LECTURE   II 
WHAT  PRAGMATISM    MEANS 

Some  years  ago,  being  with  a  camping  party  M    r^   ^      a 
in  the  mountains,  I  returned  from  a  solitary         ^i^^^^J^ 
ramble  to  find  every  one  engaged  in  a  ferocious 
metaphysical  dispute.  The  corpus  of  the  dis- 
pute was  a  squirrel  —  a  live  squirrel  supposed 
to  be  clinging  to  one  side  of  a  tree-trunk;  while 
over  against  the  tree's  opposite  side  a  human 
being  was  imagined  to  stand.  This  human  wit- 
ness tries  to  get  sight  of  the  squirrel  by  moving 
rapidly  round  the  tree,  but  no  matter  how  fast 
he  goes,  the  squirrel  moves  as  fast  in  the  op- 
posite direction,   and  always  keeps  the  tree 
between  himself  and  the  man,  so  that  never 
a  glimpse  of  him  is  caught.  The  resultant  meta- 
physical problem  now  is  this:  Doesjtlujnmi^o 
round  the  s(fuirrel_grjriQt  ?  He  goes  round  the, 
^tree,  sure  enough^_andjthe  squirrel  is  on  the 
tree;  but  does  he  go  round  the  squirrel .^,  In  the 
unlimited  leisure  of  the  wilderness,  discussion 
had  been  worn  threadbare.  Everyone  had  taken 
sides,  and  was  obstinate;  and  the  numbers  on 

43 


PRAGMATISM 

both  sides  were  even.  Each  side,  when  I  ap- 
peared therefore  appealed  to  me  to  make  it  a 
majority.  Mindful  of  the  scholastic  adage  that 
whenever  you  meet  a  contradiction  you  must 
make  a  distinction^  I  immediately  sought  and 
found  one,  as  follows:  "Which  party  is  right," 
I  said,  *' depends  on  what  you  practically  viean 
by  *  going  round'  the  squirrel.  If_you  mean 
mssing  frpna  the  north  of  him  to  the  east,  then 
to  the  south,  then  to  the  west,  and  then  to  the 
jiorth  of  him  again,  obviously  the  man  does^o 
round  him,  for  he  occupies  these  successive  po- 
sitiojis.  But  if  on  the  contrary  you  mean  being 
first  in  front  of  him,  then  on  the  right  of  him, 
then  behind  him,  then  on  his  left,  and  finally  in 
Irpnt  again^it  is  quite  as  obvious  that  the  man 
fails  to  go  round  him,  for  by  the  compensating 
movements  the  squirrel  makes,  be  keeps  his 
helly  turned  towards  the  jnan  all  the  time,  and 
his  back  turn^  ^way^  Make  the  distinction, 
and  there  is  no  occasion  for  any  farther  dispute. 
You  are  both  right  and  both  wrong  according 
as  you  conceive  the  verb  *to  go  round'  in  one 
practical  fashion  or  the  other." 

44 


P^UX^^/U^'"^ 


WHAT    PRAGMATISM    MEANS 

Although  one  or  two  of  the  hotter  disputants 
called  my  speech  a  shuffling  evasion,  saying 
they  wanted  no  quibbling  or  scholastic  hair- 
splitting, but  meant  just  plain  honest  English 
*  round,'  the  majority  seemed  to  think  that  the 
distinction  had  assuaged  the  dispute.  ^ 

I  tell  this  trivial  anecdote  because  it  is  a  pe-L^ 
culiarly  simple  example  of  what  I  wish  now  to 
speak  of  as  thepragmatic  method^  The  prag-j-^  a^/JJLru, 
inatic  method  is  primarily  a  method  of  settling  J 
metaphysical  disputes  that  otherwise  niight  be  \ 
interminable^_Is^  the  world  one  or  many  ?  — 
fated  or  free  ?  —  material  or  spiritual  ?  —  here 
are  notions  either  of  which  may  or  may  not  hold 
good  of  the  w^orld ;  and  disputes  over  such  no-         f 
tions  are  unending.  The  pragmatic  method  in  [ 
s:iich_cases  is  to  try  to  interpret  each  notion  by 
tracingits^respective  practical  consequences. 
What  difference  would  it  practically  make  to  \ 
any  one  if  this  notion  rather  than  that  notion  I 
were  true  ?  If  no  practical  difference  whatever 
c^n  be  traced,  then  the  alternatives  mean.prac- 
tically  the  same  thing,  and  all  dispute  is  idje. 
T^henever  a  dispute  is  serious,  w^e  ought  to  be 

45 


PRAGMATISM 


able  to  show  some  practical  difference  that 
must  follow  from  one  side  or  the  other's  being 
jight.  __ 

A  glance  at  the  history  of  the  idea  will  show 
you  still  better  what  pragmatism  means.  The 


D  Jk  ^SE?L_!?_  ^^^^^^^  from  the  same  Greek  word 
^^^^^-^^    ^       wpdyixa,  meaning  action,  from  which  our  words 
'practice'  and  *  practical'  come.  It  was  first 
introduced  into  philosophy  by  Mr.   Charles 
j  Peirce  in  1878.  In  an  article  entitled  'How  to 
Make  Our  Ideas  Clear,'  in  the  *  Popular  Sci- 
ence Monthly'  for  January  of  that  year  ^  Mr. 
Peirce,  after  pointing  out  that  our  beliefs  are 
really  rules  for  action,  said  that,  to  develop 
a  thought's  meaning,  we  need  only  determine 
what  conduct  it  is  fitted  to  produce:  that  con- 
duct is  for  us  its  sole  significance.    And  the 
tangible  fact  at  the  root  of  all  our  thought- 
-^^^1   distinctions,  however  subtle,  is  that  there  is  no 
one  of  them  so  fine  as  to  consist  in  anything  but 
a  possible   difference  of  practice.    To  attain 
perfect  clearness  in  our  thoughts  of  an  object, 
then,  we  need  only  consider  what  conceivable 

*  Translated  in  the  Revue  Philosophique  (or  January,  1879  (vol.  vii). 

46 


WHAT    PRAGMATISM    MEANS 

effects  of  a  practical  kind  the  object  may  in- 
volve—  what  sensations  we  are  to  expect  from 
it,  and  what  reactions  we  must  prepare.  Our 
conception  of  these  effects,  whether  immediate 
or  remote,  is  then  for  us  the  whole  of  our  con- 
ception of  the  object,  so  far  as  that  conception 
has  positive  significance  at  all. 

This  is  the  principle  of  Peirce,  the  principle 
of  pragmatism.  It  lay  entirely  unnoticed  by 
any  one  for  twenty  years,  until  I,  in  an  ad- 
dress before  Professor  Howison's  philosophical 
union  at  the  university  of  California,  brought  it 
forw^ard  again  and  made  a  special  application 
of  it  to  religion.  By  that  date  (1898)  the  times 
seemed  ripe  for  its  reception.  The  word  *  prag- 
matism' spread,  and  at  present  it  fairly  spots 
the  pages  of  the  philosophic  journals.  On 
all  hands  w^e  find  the  'pragmatic  movement' 
spoken  of,  sometimes  with  respect,  sometimes 
with  contumely,  seldom  with  clear  understand- 
ing. It  is  evident  that  the  term  applies  itself 
conveniently  to  a  number  of  tendencies  that 
hitherto  have  lacked  a  collective  name,  and  that 
it  has  '  come  to  stay.' 

47 


PRAGMATISM 

To  take  in  the  importance  of  Peirce's  princi- 
ple, one  must  get  accustomed  to  applying  it  to 
concrete  cases.  I  found  a  few  years  ago  that 
Ostwald,  the  illustrious  Leipzig  chemist,  had 
been  making  perfectly  distinct  use  of  the  prin- 
ciple of  pragmatism  in  his  lectures  on  the 
philosophy  of  science,  though  he  had  not  called 
it  by  that  name. 

"All  realities  influence  our  practice,"  he 
wrote  me,  "and  that  influence  is  their  meaning 
for  us.  I  am  accustomed  to  put  questions  to 
my  classes  in  this  way :  In  what  respects  would 
the  world  be  different  if  this  alternative  or  that 
were  true.^  Jf  I  can  find  nothing  that  would 
become  different,  then  the  alternative  has  no 
^nse." 

That  is,  the  rival  views  mean  pra< 


same  thing,  and  meaning,  other  than  practical, 
there  is  for  usjione^  Ostwald  in  a  published 
lecture  gives  this  example  of  what  he  means. 
Chemists  have  long  wrangled  over  the  inner 
constitution  of  certain  bodies  called  *  tautomer- 
ous.'  Their  properties  seemed  equally  consist- 
ent with  the  notion  that  an  instable  hydrogen 

48 


WHAT    PRAGMATISM    MEANS 

atom  oscillates  inside  of  them,  or  that  they  are 
instable  mixtures  of  two  bodies.  Controversy 
raged, but  never  was  decided.  **It  would  never 
have  begun," says  Ostwald,  *'if  the  combatants 
had  asked  themselves  w^hat  particular  experi- 
mental fact  could  have  been  made  different  by 
one  or  the  other  view  being  correct.  For  it 
would  then  have  appeared  that  no  difference  of 
fact  could  possibly  ensue;  and  the  quarrel  was 
as  unreal  as  if,  theorizing  in  primitive  times 
about  the  raising  of  dough  by  yeast,  one  party 
should  have  invoked  a  *  brownie,'  while  an- 
other insisted  on  an  'elf  as  the  true  cause  of 
the  phenomenon."  ^ 

It  is  astonishing  to  see  how  many  philosoph- 
ical disputes  collapse  into  insignificance  the 
moment  you  subject  them  to  this  simple  test  of 
tracing  a  concrete  consequence.  There  can  be 


I  " 


'Theorie  und  Praxis,'  Zeitsch.  des  Oesferreichischen  Ingenieur  u. 
Architecten-Vereines,  1905,  Nr.  4  u.  6.  I  find  a  still  more  radical  prag- 
matism than  Ostwald's  in  an  address  by  Professor  W.  S.  Franklin: 
"I  think  that  the  sickliest  notion  of  physics,  even  if  a  student  gets  it, 
is  that  it  is '  the  science  of  masses,  molecules,  and  the  ether.'  And 
I  think  that  the  healthiest  notion,  even  if  a  student  does  not  wholly 
get  it,  is  that  physics  is  the  science  of  the  ways  of  taking  hold  of 
bodies  and  pushing  them!"  (^Science,  January  2,  1903.) 

49 


PRAGMATISM 

no  difference  anywhere  that  does  n't  make  a 
difference  elsewhere^  no  difference  in  abstract 
truth  that  does  n't  express  itself  in  a  difference 
in  concrete  Jact_  and  in  conduct  consequent 
upon  that  fact,  imposed  on  somebody,  some- 
how, somewhere,  and  somewhen.  The  whole 
^'function  of  philosophy  ought  to  be  to  find 
out  what  definite  difference  it  will  make  to  you 
and  me,  at  definite  instants  of  our  life,  if  this 
world-formula  or  that  world-formula  be  the 
true  one. 

Thereis  absolutely  nothing  new  in  the  prag- 
matic method.  Socrates  was  an  adept  at  it. 
Aristotle  used  it  methodically.  Locke,  Berke- 
ley, and  Hume  made  momentous  contribu- 
tions to  truth  by  its  means,  ^adworth  Hodg- 
son keeps  insisting  that  realities  are  only  what 
they  are  *  known  as.'  But  these  forerunners  of 
pragmatism  used  it  in  fragments:  they  were 
preluders  only.  Not  until  in  our  time  has  it  gen- 
eralized itself,  become  conscious  of  a  universal 
mission,  pretended  to  a  conquering  destiny.  I 
believe  in  that  destiny,  and  I  hope  I  may  end 
by  inspiring  you  with  my  belief. 

50 


WHAT    PRAGMATISM    MEANS     *^  ^  MT^ 

Pragmatism  represents  a  perfectly  familiar  (^X^gJ^"^^^^ 
attitude  in  philosophy,  the  empiricist  attitude,  Vci 
but  it  represents  it,  as  it  seems  to  me,  both  in 
a  more  radical  and  in  a  less  objectionable 
form  than  it  has  ever  yet  assumed.  A  prag- 
matist  turns  his  back  resolutely  and  once  for 
all  upon  a  lot  of  inveterate  habits  dear  to  pro- 
fessional philosophers.  He  turns  away  fram 
abstraction  and  insufficiency,  from  verbal  solu- 
tions^ron^  bad  a^^rJQii  reasons,  from  _fix£.d 
principles,  closed  systems ,_and  pretended  abso- 
lutes .aniLarigins^  He  turns  towards  concrete- 
ness_and_adec[uacy,  towards  facts,  towards  act- 
ion and  towards  power.  That  means  the  em- 
piricist temper  regnant  and  the  rationalist 
temper  sincerely  given  up.  It  means  the  open 
air  and  possibilities  of  nature,  as  against 
dogma,  artificiality,  and  the  pretence  of  finality 
in  truth. 

At  the  same  time  it  does  not  stand  for  any 
special  results.  It  is  a  method  only.  But  the  , 
general  triumph  of  that  method  would  mean 
an  enormous  change  in  what  I  called  in  my 
last  lecture  the  'temperament'  of  philosophy. 


51 


PRAGMATISM 


Teachers  of  the  ultra-rationalistic  type  would 

be  frozen  out,  much  as  the  courtier  type  is 

*4^  frozen  out  in  republics,  as  the  ultramontane 

y^tP^^     type  of  priest  is  frozen  out  in  protestant  lands. 


A^fi*       Science  and  metaphysics  would  come  much 


nearer  together,  would  in  fact  work  absolutely 
hand  in  hand. 


vV  jW*^"^^  Metaphysics   has   usually  followed   a   very 
tA^  primitive  kind  of  quest.  You  know  how  men 

have  always  hankered  after  unlawful  magic, 
and  you  know  what  a  great  part  in  magic  words 
have  always  played.  If  you  have  his  name,  or 
the  formula  of  incantation  that  binds  him,  you 
can  control  the  spirit,  genie,  afrite,  or  whatever 
the  power  may  be.  Solomon  knew  the  names  of 
all  the  spirits,  and  having  their  names,  he  held 
them  subject  to  his  will.  So  the  universe  has  al- 
ways appeared  to  the  natural  mind  as  a  kind  of 
enigma,  of  which  the  key  must  be  sought  in  the 
shape  of  some  illuminating  or  power-bringing 
word  or  name.  That  word  names  the  universe's 
principle,  and  to  possess  it  is  after  a  fashion  to 
possess  the  universe  itself.  'God,'  'Matter,' 
'Reason,'    'the    Absolut'?,'    'Energy,'    are    so 

52 


WHAT    PRAGMATISM    MEANS 

many  solving  names.  You  can  rest  when  you 
have  them.  You  are  at  the  end  of  your  meta- 
physical quest. 
/But  if  you  follow  the  pragmatic  method,  you 
cannot  look  on  any  such  word  as  closing  your 
quest.  You  must  bring  out  of  each  word  its 
practical  cash-value,  set  it  at  work  within  the 
stream  of  your  experience.   It  appears  less  as 
a  solution,  then,  than  as  a  program  for  more 
work,  and  more  particularly  as  an  indication 
of  the  ways  in  which  existing  realities  may  be 
changed. 

swers  to_enigmm^»J^ '^^'^^^i^^^'  ^^^^  £fl2LJ:gjl_We 
don't  lie  back  upon  them,  we  move  forward, 
and,  on  occasion,  make  nature  over  again 
by  their  aid.  Pragmatism  unstiffens  all  our 
theories,  limbers  them  up  and  sets  each  one 
at  work.  Being  nothing  essentially  new,  it  har- 
monizes with  many  ancient  philosophic  tenden- 
cies. It  agrees  with  nominalism  for  instance, 
in  always  appealing  to  particulars;  with  util- 
itarianism in  emphasizing  practical  aspects; 
with    positivism    in    its    disdain    for    verbal 


f 


53 


T 


PRAGMATISM 

\        solutions,  useless  questions  and  metaphysical 
abstractions. 

f)   U All  these,  you  see,  are  anti-intellectualist  tend- 

^  -    •  Jy^      encies.  Against  rationalism  as  a  pretension  and 
^  >     a  method  pragmatism  is  fully  armed  and  mili- 

tant. But,  at  the  outset,  at  least,  it  stands  for 
no  particular  results.  It  has  no  dogmas,  and  no 
doctrines  save  its  method.  As  the  young  Italian 
pragmatist  Papini  has  well  said,  itJiesjnJ:hG 
midst  of  our  theories,  like  a  corridor  in  a  hotel. 
Innumerable  chambers  open  out  of  it.  In  one 
you  may  find  a  man  writing  an  atheistic  vol- 
ume; in  the  next  some  one  on  his  knees  pray- 
ing for  faith  and  strength ;  in  a  third  a  chemist 
investigating  a  body's  properties.  In  a  fourth 
a  system  of  idealistic  metaphysics  is  being  ex- 
cogitated; in  a  fifth  the  impossibility  of  meta- 
physics is  being  shown.  But  they  all  own  the 
corridor,  and  all  must  pass  through  it  if  they 
want  a  practicable  way  of  getting  into  or  out 
of  their  respective  rooms. 
,  No  particular  Jesuits  then,  so  far,  but  only  an 
«  ^ttitude^l, orientation,  is  what  the  pragmatic 
i^ethod  means.   TJi^_atiLt*jde  ol  looking  away 

54 


WHAT    PRAGMATISM    MEANS 


*i 


Sui 


tUX^iUU4^ 


pom  -first  things,  principles,  '  categories .L.&up^ 
posed  necessities;  and  of  looking  towards  last 
things^  fruits,  consequences^  Jacts^  (S)fl  t' 

So  much  for  the  pragmatic  method!  You  3^ 

may  say  that  I  have  been  praising  it  rather  than  tJj^^^^LAj 
explaining  it  to  you,  but  I  shall  presently  ex-  ft^  •  /  X 
plain  it  abundantly  enough  by  showing  how  it 
works  on  some  familiar  problems.  Meanwhile 
fhf>  word-pragmatism  has  come  to  be  used_jn 
a  still  wider  sense,  as  meaning  also  a  certain 
theorjiolJruth^l  mean  to  give  a  whole  lecture 
to  the  statement  of  that  theory,  after  first  pav- 
ing the  way,  so  I  can  be  very  brief  now.  But 
brevity  is  hard  to  follow,  so  I  ask  for  your  re- 
doubled attention  for  a  quarter  of  an  hour.  If 
much  remains  obscure,!  hope  to  make  it  clearer 
in  the  later  lectures. 

One  of  the  most  successfully  cultivated 
branches  of  philosophy  in  our  time  is  what  is 
called  igductive  logic^Jhe  study  of_the_condi- 
tions  under  which  our_sciences  have  evol\;^d. 
Writers  on  this  subject  have  begun  to  show 
a  singular  unanimity  as  to  what  the  laws  of 
nature  and  elements  of  fact  mean,  when  formu- 

55 


yA^ 


PRAGMATISM 


lated  by  mathematicians,  physicists  and  chem- 
ists. Wh^^  ^^^  ^^^^  mathematical,  lop^icaU  and 
natural  uniformities,  the  first  laws,  were  dis- 
covered, men  were  so  carried  away  by  the  clear- 
ness,  beauty  and  simplification  that  resulted, 
that  they  believed  themselves  to  have  deci- 
phered authentically  the  eternal  thoughts  of 
the  Almighty.  His  mind  also  thundered  and 
reverberated  in  syllogisms.  He  also  thought  in 
conic  sections,  squares  and  roots  and  ratios, 
and  geometrized  like  Euclid.  He  made  Kep- 
ler's laws  for  the  planets  to  follow;  he  made 
velocity  increase  proportionally  to  the  time  in 
falling  bodies;  he  made  the  law  of  the  sines 
for  light  to  obey  when  refracted ;  he  established 
the  classes,  orders,  families  and  genera  of 
plants  and  animals,  and  fixed  the  distances  be- 
tween them.  He  thought  the  archetypes  of  all 
things,  and  devised  their  variations;  and  when 
we  rediscover  any  one  of  these  his  wondrous 
institutions,  we  seize  his  mind  in  its  very  literal 
intention. 

JBiit,as  the  sciences  have  developed ia^tfeei, 
the  notion  has  gained  ground  that  jgagst^  jger- 

56 


WHAT    PRAGMATISM    MEANS      l^"^*^^"^^^^^^^ 

Jiaps-alL-of  our  laws  nre  only  apprnvimjitions-  ^ 
The  laws  themselves,  moreover,  have  grown  so 
numerous  that  there  is  no  counting  them ;  and 
so  many  rival  formulations  are  proposed  in  all 
the  branches  of  science  that  investigators  have 
become  accustomed  to  the  notion  that  no 
theory  is  absolutely  a  transcript  of  reality,  but 
that  any  one  of  them  may  from  some  point  of 
view  be  useful.  Their  great  use  is  to  summarize 
old  facts  and  to  lead  to  new  ones.  They  are 
only  a  man-made  language,  a  conceptual  short- 
hand, as  some  one  calls  them,  in  which  we  w^ite 
our  reports  of  nature;  and  languages,  as  is  well 
known,  tolerate  much  choice  of  expression  and 
many  dialects. 

Thus  human  arbitrariness  has  driven  divine 
necessity  from  scientific  logic.  If  I  mention  the 
names  of  Sigwart,  Mach,  Ostw^ald,  Pearson, 
Milhaud,  Poincare,  Duhem,  Ruyssen,  those 
of  you  who  are  students  will  easily  identify  the 
tendency  I  speak  of,  and  will  think  of  addi- 
tional names. 

Riding  now  on  the  front  of  this  wave  of  sci- 
entific logic  Messrs.  Schiller  and^ewey  appear 

57 


/. ^ 


yj      u  ^ 


PRAGMATISM 


V 


with  their  pragmatistic  account  of  what  truth 
everywhere  signifies.  ^Everywherg,  these  teach- 
ers say, '  truth'  in  our  ideas  and  beliefs  means 

"  ' — -    — . ■» 

the  same  thing_that_i^means_  in  scienre.  It 
means,  they  say,  nothing  but  this,  that  ideas 
(which  themselves  are_biil  parts  of  pur  experi- 
ence) become  true  jmt_m..so  far  as  they  help^s 
to  get  into  satisfactory  relation  with  other  part^ 
ofj)ur  experiences  to  summarize  them  and  get 
^  about  among  them  by  conceptual  short-cuts 

instead  of  following  the  interminable  succes- 
sion of  particular  phenomena.  Any  idea  upon 
which  we  can  ride,  so  to  speak;  any  idea  that 
will  carry  us  prosperously  from  any  one  part  of 
our  experience  to  any  other  part,  linking  things 
satisfactorily,  working  securely,  simplifying, 
saving  labor;  is  true  for  just  so  much,  true  in 
so  far  forth,  true  instrumentally.  This  is  the 
'instrumentar  view  of  truth  taught  so  suc- 
cessfully at  Chicago,  thejyiewLlhat4ruth4ft-our 
ideas_means_ JJimr__pQW£r  4e^  Sreriiy!-^)^^ 
gated  soJ3rilliantly-.atjQxford./ 

Messrs.  Dewey,  Schiller  and  their  allies,  in 
reaching  this  general  conception  of  all  truth, 

58 


WHAT    PRAGMATISM    MEANS 

have  only  followed  the  example  of  geologists, 
biologists  and  philologists.  In  the  establish- 
ment of  these  other  sciences,  the  successful 
stroke  was  always  to  take  some  simple  process 
actually  observable  in  operation  —  as  denuda- 
tion by  weather,  say,  or  variation  from  parental 
type,  or  change  of  dialect  by  incorporation  of 
new  words  and  pronunciations  —  and  then  to 
generalize  it,  making  it  apply  to  all  times,  and 
produce  great  results  by  summating  its  effects 
through  the  ages.  0^  ^H^L^^^^ 

The  observable  process  which  Schiller  and  ^irv-Mx-^cA-^ 
Dewey  particularly  singled  out  for  generaliza-  */    ^i.e^ 
tion  is  the  familiar  one  by  which  any  individual    /qsJaa^ 
settles  into  new  opinions.  The  process  here  is 
always  the  same.  Thejndividual  hag^a  stock  of 
oId_ppinions  already,  but  he  meets  a  new  expe-_ 
rience  that^puts-JJiem.  to  a  strain.  Somebody 
contradicts  them ;  or  in  a  reflective  moment  he 
discovers  that  they  contradict  each  other;    or 
he  hears  of  facts  with  which  they  are  incompat- 
ible; or  desires  arise  in  him  which  they  cease 
to  satisfy.  The  result  is  an  inward  trouble  to 
T^hich  his  mind  till_jhen  had  been  j,  stranger, 

59  ' 


PRAGMATISM 

and  from  which  he  seeks  to  escape  by  modify- 
iiigLhis4>reYiQus  mass  of  opinions.  He  saves  as 
much  of  it  as  he  can,  for  in  this  matter  of  belief 
we  are  all  extreme  conservatives.  So  he  tries  to 
change  first  this  opinion,  and  then  that  (for  they 
resist  change  very  variously),  until  at  last  some 
new  idea  comes  up  which  he  can  graft  upon  the 
ancient  stock  with  a  minimum  of  disturbance 
of  the  latter,  some  idea  that  mediates  between 
the  stock  and  the  new  experience  and  runs 
them  into  one  another  most  felicitously  and 


^^^    expediently. 

^W^   ,jb »       one.  It  pres 

jL  Vy^  i-,vV-*  a  minimum  of  modification,  stretching  them 


This  new  idea  is  then  adopted  as  the  true 


>^- 


just  enough  to  make  them  admit  the  novelty, 
but  conceiving  that  in  ways  as  familiar  as  the 
case  leaves  possible.  An  outree  explanation, 
violating  all  our  preconceptions,  would  never 
pass  for  a  true  account  of  a  novelty.  We  should 
scratch  round  industriously  till  we  found  some- 
thing less  excentric.  The  most  violent  revolu- 
tions in  an  individual's  beliefs  leave  most  of  his 
old  order  standing.  Time  and  space, cause  and 


^      60 


WHAT    PRAGMATISM    MEANS 

effect,  nature  and  history,  and  one's  own  bio- 
graphy remain  untouched.  New  truth  is  ahvays 
a  go-between,  a  smoother-over  of  transitions. 
It  marries  old  opinion  to  new  fact  so  as  ever 
to  show  a  minimum  of  jolt,  a  maximum  of  con- 
tinuity. We  hold  a  theory  true  just  in  propor- 
tion to  its  success  in  solving  this  *  problem  of 
maxima  and  minima.'  But  success  in  solving 
this  problem  is  eminently  a  matter  of  approx- 
imation. We  say  this  theory  solves  it  on  the 
whole  more  satisfactorily  than  that  theory;  but 
that  means  more  satisfactorily  to  ourselves,  and 
individuals  will  emphasize  their  points  of  satis- 
faction differently.  To  a  certain  degree,  there- 
fore, everything  here  is  plastic. 

The  point  I  now  urge  you  to  observe  partic- 
ularly is  the  part  played  by  the  older  truths. 
Failure  to  take  account  of  it  is  the  source  of 
much  of  the  unjust  criticism  levelled  against 
pragmatism.  Their  influence  is  absolutely  con- 
trolling. Loyalty  to  them  is  the  first  principle 
—  in  most  cases  it  is  the  only  principle ;  for  by 
far  the  most  usual  way  of  handling  phenomena 
so  novel  that  they  would  make  for  a  serious  re- 

61 


PRAGMATISM 

arrangement  of  our  preconception  h  to  ignore 
them  altogether,  or  to  abuse  those  who  bear 
witness  for  them. 

You  doubtless  wish  examples  of  this  process 
of  truth's  growth,  and  the  only  trouble  is  their 
superabundance.  The  simplest  case  of  new 
truth  is  of  course  the  mere  numerical  addition 
of  new  kinds  of  facts,  or  of  new  single  facts  of 
old  kinds,  to  our  experience  —  an  addition  that 
involves  no  alteration  in  the  old  beliefs.  Day 
follows  day,  and  its  contents  are  simply  added. 
The  new  contents  themselves  are  not  true,  they 
simply  come  and  are.  Truth  is  what  we  say 
about  them,  and  when  we  say  that  they  have 
come,  truth  is  satisfied  by  the  plain  additive 
formula. 

But  often  the  day's  contents  oblige  a  re- 
arrangement.  If  I  should  now  utter  piercmg 
shrieks  and  act  like  a  maniac  on  this  platform, 
it  would  make  many  of  you  revise  your  ideas  as 
to  the  probable  worth  of  my  philosophy.  *  Ra- 
dium' came  the  other  day  as  part  of  the  day's 
content,  and  seemed  for  a  moment  to  contra- 
dict our  ideas  of  the  who^e  order  of  nature,  that 

62 


WHAT    PRAGMx\TISM    MEANS 

order  having  come  to  be  identified  with  what  is 
called  the  conservation  of  energy.  The  mere 
sight  of  radium  paying  heat  away  indefinitely 
out  of  its  own  pocket  seemed  to  violate  that 
conservation.  What  to  think  ?  If  the  radia- 
tions from  it  were  nothing  but  an  escape  of 
unsuspected  'potential'  energy,  pre-existent  in- 
side of  the  atoms,  the  principle  of  conservation 
would  be  saved.  The  discovery  of  *  helium'  as 
the  radiation's  outcome,  opened  a  way  to  this 
belief.  So  Ramsay's  view  is  generally  held  to 
be  true,  because,  although  it  extends  our  old 
ideas  of  energy,  it  causes  a  minimum  of  altera- 
tion in  their  nature. 

I  need  not  multiply  instances.  A  new  opin- 
ion counts  as  'true'  just  in  proportion  as  it 
gratifies  the  individual's  desire  to  assimilate  the 
novel  in  his  experience  to  his  beliefs  in  stock.  It 
must  both  lean  on  old  truth  and  grasp  new  fact; 
and  its  success  (as  I  said  a  moment  ago)  in  do- 
ing this,  is  a  matter  for  the  individual's  appre- 
ciation. When  old  truth  growls,  then,  by  new 
truth's  addition,  it  is  for  subjective  reasons.  We 
are  in  the  process  and  obey  the  reasons.   That 

63 


PRAGMATISM 

new  idea  is  truest  which  performs  most  felic* 

itously  its  function  of  satisfying  our  double 

\/       iirgency.  It  makes  itself  true,  gets  itself  classed 

y     a/    as  true,  by  the  way  it  works ;  grafting  itself  then 

^    aJ       upon  the  ancient  body  of  truth,  which  thus 

grows  much  as  a  tree  grows  by  the  activity  of 

a  new  layer  of  cambium. 

Now  Dewey  and  Schiller  proceed  to  general- 
ize this  observation  and  to  apply  it  to  the  most 
ancient  parts  of  truth.  They  also  once  were 
plastic.  They  also  were  called  true  for  human 
reasons.  They  also  mediated  between  still 
earlier  truths  and  what  in  those  days  were  novel 
observations.  Purely  objective  truth,  truth  in 
whose  establishment  the  function  of  giving 
human  satisfaction  in  marrying  previous  parts 
of  experience  with  newer  parts  played  no  role 
whatever,  is  nowhere  to  be  found.  The  reasons 
why  we  call  things  true  is  the  reason  why  they 
are  true,  for  *to  be  true'  means  only  to  perform 
this  marriage-function. 

The  trail  of  the  human  serpent  is  thus  over 
everything.  Truth  independent ;  truth  that  we 
find  merely;   truth  no  longer  malleable  to  hu- 

64 


WHAT   PRAGMATISM   MEANS 

man  need;  truth  incorrigible,  in  a  word;  such 
truth  exists  indeed  superabundantly  —  or  is 
supposed  to  exist  by  rationalistically  minded 
thinkers;  but  then  it  means  only  the  dead  heart 
of  the  living  tree,  and  its  being  there  means 
only  that  truth  also  has  its  paleontology,  and  its 
*  prescription,'  and  may  grow  stiff  with  years  of 
veteran  service  and  petrified  in  men's  regard  by 
sheer  antiquity.  But  how  plastic  even  the  old- 
est truths  nevertheless  really  are  has  been  viv- 
idly shown  in  our  day  by  the  transformation  of 
logical  and  mathematical  ideas,  a  transforma- 
tion which  seems  even  to  be  invading  physics. 
The  ancient  formulas  are  reinterpreted  as 
special  expressions  of  much  wider  principles, 
principles  that  our  ancestors  never  got  a  glimpse 
of  in  their  present  shape  and  formulation.       ^  \f^yL^ 

Mr.  Schiller  still  gives  to  all  this  view  of  truth  ^  f        aidiC 
the  name  of  'Humanism,'  but,  for  this  doctrine    jL^^^^f-y^ 
too,  the  name  of  pragmatism  seems  fairly  to  be 
in  the  ascendant,  so  I  will  treat  it  under  the 
name  of  pragmatism  in  these  lectures. 
/  Such  then  w^ould  be  the  scope  of  pragmatism 
— first,  a  method;  and  second,  a  genetic  theory 

65 


PRAGMATISM 

]     of  what  is  meant  by  truth.  And  these  two  things 
must  be  our  future  topics. 

What  I  have  said  of  the  theory  of  truth  will, 
I  am  sure,  have  appeared  obscure  and  unsatis- 
factory to  most  of  you  by  reason  of  its  brevity. 
I  shall  make  amends  for  that  hereafter.  In 
a  lecture  on  '  common  sense '  I  shall  try  to  show 
what  I  mean  by  truths  grown  petrified  by 
antiquity.  In  another  lecture  I  shall  expatiate 
on  the  idea  that  our  thoughts  become  true  in 
proportion  as  they  successfully  exert  their  go- 
between  function.  In  a  third  I  shall  show  how 
hard  it  is  to  discriminate  subjective  from  ob- 
jective factors  in  Truth's  development.  You 
may  not  follow  me  wholly  in  these  lectures; 
and  if  you  do,  you  may  not  wholly  agree  with 
me.  But  you  will,  I  know,  regard  me  at  least 
as  serious,  and  treat  my  effort  with  respectful 

^  r^     ,  You  will  probably  be  surprised  to  learn,  then, 

"^^Y^        that  Messrs.  Schiller's  and   Dewey's  theories 
^^•^   *         have  suffered  a  hailstorm  of  contempt  and  ridi- 
cule.  All  rationalism  has  risen  against  them. 
In  influential  quarters  Mr.  Schiller,  in  partic- 

66 


WHAT    PRAGMATISM    MEANS 

ular,  has  been  treated  like  an  impudent  school- 
boy who  deserves  a  spanking.  I  should  not 
mention  this,  but  for  the  fact  that  it  throws  so 
much  sidelight  upon  that  rationalistic  temper 
to  which  I  have  opposed  the  temper  of  prag- 
matism.  Pragmatism  is  uncomfortable  away 
from  facts.  Rationalism  is  comfortable  only  in 
the  presence  of  abstractions.  This  pragmatist 
talk  about  truths  in  the  plural,  about  their 
utility  and  satisfactoriness,  about  the  success 
wath  w^hich  they  *work,'  etc.,  suggests  to  the 
typical  intellectualist  mind  a  sort  of  coarse 
lame  second-rate  makeshift  article  of  truth. 
Such  truths  are  not  real  truth.  Such  tests  are 
merely  subjective.  As  against  this,  objective 
truth  must  be  something  non  -  utilitarian, 
haughty,  refined,  remote,  august,  exalted.  It 
must  be  an  absolute  correspondence  of  our 
thoughts  with  an  equally  absolute  reality.  It 
must  be  what  we  ought  to  think  uncondition- 
ally. The  conditioned  ways  in  which  we  do 
think  are  so  much  irrelevance  and  matter  for 
psychology.  Down  with  psychology,  up  with 
logic,  in  all  this  question! 

67 


PRAGMATISM 

See  the  exquisite  contrast  of  the  types  of 
mind!  The  pragmatist  clings  to  facts  and 
concreteness,  observes  truth  at  its  work  in  par- 
ticular cases,  and  generalizes.  Truth,  for  him, 
becomes  a  class-name  for  all  sorts  of  definite 
working-values  in  experience.  For  the  ration- 
alist it  remains  a  pure  abstraction,  to  the  bare 
name  of  which  we  must  defer.  When  the  prag- 
matist undertakes  to  show  in  detail  just  why  we 
must  defer,  the  rationalist  is  unable  to  recognize 
the  concretes  from  which  his  own  abstraction 
is  taken.  He  accuses  us  of  denying  truth; 
whereas  we  have  only  sought  to  trace  exactly 
why  people  follow  it  and  always  ought  to  follow 
it.  Your  typical  ultra-abstractionist  fairly  shud- 
ders at  concreteness:  other  things  equal,  he 
positively  prefers  the  pale  and  spectral.  If  the 
two  universes  were  offered,  he  would  always 
choose  the  skinny  outline  rather  than  the  rich 
thicket  of  reality.  It  is  so  much  purer,  clearer, 
nobler. 

I  hope  that  as  these  lectures  go  on,  the  con- 
creteness and  closeness  to  facts  of  the  pragma- 
tism which  they  advocate  may  be  what  approves 

68 


WHAT    PRAGMATISM    MEANS 

itself  to  you  as  its  most  satisfactory  peculiarity. 
It  only  follows  here  the  example  of  the  sister- 
sciences,  interpreting  the  unobserved  by  the 
observed.  It  brings  old  and  new  harmoniously 
together.  It  converts  the  absolutely  empty 
notion  of  a  static  relation  of  'correspondence' 
(what  that  may  mean  w^e  must  ask  later)  be- 
tween our  minds  and  reality,  into  that  of  a  rich 
and  active  commerce  (that  any  one  may  follow 
in  detail  and  understand)  between  particular 
thoughts  of  ours,  and  the  great  universe  of  other 
experiences  in  which  they  play  their  parts  and 
have  their  uses. 

But  enough  of  this  at  present  ?  The  justifica- 
tion of  w^hat  I  say  must  be  postponed.  I  wish 
now  to  add  a  word  in  further  explanation  of  the 
claim  I  made  at  our  last  meeting,  that  pragma- 
tism may  be  a  happy  harmonizer  of  empiricist 
ways  of  thinking  with  the  more  religious  de- 
mands of  human  beings. 

'p. 


Men  who  are  strongly  of  the  fact-loving  tem-  ^  ^ 
perament,  you  may  remember  me  to  have  said,  V^^'^^Y^^^ 
are  liable  to  be  kept  at  a  distance  by  the  small  L>Hj^' .  \^ 

69  luUl^ 


PRAGMATISM 

sympathy  with  facts  which  that  philosophy 
from  the  present-day  fashion  of  idealism  offers 
them.  It  is  far  too  intellectualistic.  Old  fash- 
ioned theism  was  bad  enough,  with  its  notion  of 
God  as  an  exalted  monarch,  made  up  of  a  lot  of 
unintelligible  or  preposterous  '  attributes ' ;  but, 
so  long  as  it  held  strongly  by  the  argument  from 
design,  it  kept  some  touch  with  concrete  reali- 
ties. Since,  however,  darwinism  has  once  for  all 
displaced  design  from  the  minds  of  the  '  scien- 
tific,' theism  has  lost  that  foothold;  and  some 
kind  of  an  immanent  or  pantheistic  deity  work- 
ing in  things  rather  than  above  them  is,  if  any, 
the  kind  recommended  to  our  contemporary 
imagination.  Aspirants  to  a  philosophic  religion 
turn,  as  a  rule,  more  hopefully  nowadays  to- 
wards idealistic  pantheism  than  towards  the 
older  dualistic  theism,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that 
the  latter  still  counts  able  defenders. 

But,  as  I  said  in  my  first  lecture,  the  brand  of 
pantheism  offered  is  hard  for  them  to  assimilate 
if  they  are  lovers  of  facts,  or  empirically  minded. 
It  is  the  absolutistic  brand,  spurning  the  dust 
and  reared  upon  pure  logic.    It  keeps  no  con- 

70 


WHAfT    PRAGMATISM    MEANS 

nexion  whatever  with  concreteness.  x\ffirming 
the  Absolute  Mind,  which  is  its  substitute  for 
God,  to  be  the  rational  presupposition  of  all 
particulars  of  fact,  whatever  they  may  be,  it  re- 
mains supremely  indifferent  to  what  the  par- 
ticular facts  in  our  world  actually  are.  Be  they 
what  they  may,  the  Absolute  will  father  them. 
Like  the  sick  lion  in  Esop's  fable,  all  footprints 
lead  into  his  den,  but  nulla  vestigia  retrorsum. 
You  cannot  redescend  into  the  world  of  par- 
ticulars by  the  Absolute's  aid,  or  deduce  any 
necessary  consequences  of  detail  important  for 
your  life  from  your  idea  of  his  nature.  He  gives 
you  indeed  the  assurance  that  all  is  w^ell  with 
Him,  and  for  his  eternal  way  of  thinking;  but  ^^ 
thereupon  he  leaves  you  to  be  finitely  saved  by(Q  ' 
your  own  temporal  devices.  jj^ayv^^-^^^^ 

Far  be  it  from  me  to  deny  the  majesty  of  this  ^^Uxi/tiA^ 
conception,  or  its  capacity  to  yield  religious  ^^.X^-**'^^''^'^ 
comfort  to  a  most  respectable  class  of  minds. 
But  from  the  human  point  of  view,  no  one  can 
pretend  that  it  does  n't  suffer  from  the  faults  of 
remoteness  and  abstractness.  It  is  eminently 
a  product  of  what  I  have  ventured  to  call  the 

71 


PRAGMATISM 

rationalistic  temper.  It  disdains  empiricism's 
needs.  It  substitutes  a  pallid  outline  for  the  real 
world's  richness.  It  is  dapper,  it  is  noble  in  the 
bad  sense,  in  the  sense  in  which  to  be  noble  is  to 
be  inapt  for  humble  service.  In  this  real  world 
of  sweat  and  dirt,  it  seems  to  me  that  when  a 
view  of  things  is  *  noble,'  that  ought  to  count  as 
a  presumption  against  its  truth,  and  as  a  phil- 
osophic disqualification.  The  prince  of  dark- 
ness may  be  a  gentleman,  as  we  are  told  he  is, 
but  whatever  the  God  of  earth  and  heaven  is, 
he  can  surely  be  no  gentleman.  His  menial 
services  are  needed  in  the  dust  of  our  human 
trials,  even  more  than  his  dignity  is  needed  in 
the  empyrean. 

Now  pragmatism,  devoted  though  she  be  to 
facts,  has  no  such  materialistic  bias  as  ordinary 
empiricism  labors  under.  Moreover,  she  has  no 
objection  whatever  to  the  realizing  of  abstract- 
ions, so  long  as  you  get  about  among  particu- 
lars with  their  aid  and  they  actually  carry  you 
somewhere.  Interested  in  no  conclusions  but 
those  which  our  minds  and  our  experiences 
work  out  together,  she  has  no  a  priori  preju- 

72 


WHAT    PRAGMATISM    MEANS 

dices  against  theology.  7/  theological  ideas 
prove  to  have  a  value  for  concrete  life,  they  will 
be  true,  for  pragmatism,  in  the  sense  of  being 
good  for  so  much.  For  how  much  more  they  are 
true,  will  depend  entirely  on  their  relations  to  the 
other  truths  that  also  have  to  be  acknowledged, 

^yhat  I  said  just  now  about  the  Absolute, 
of  transcendental  idealism,  is  a  case  in  point. 
First,  I  called  it  majestic  and  said  it  yielded 
religious  comfort  to  a  class  of  minds,  and  then 
I  accused  it  of  remoteness  and  sterility.  But 
so  far  as  it  affords  such  comfort,  it  surely  is  not 
sterile;  it  has  that  amount  of  value;  it  per- 
forms a  concrete  function.  As  a  good  pragma- 
tist,  I  myself  ought  to  call  the  Absolute  true 
*in  so  far  forth,'  then;  and  I  unhesitatingly  now 

But  what  does  true  in  so  far  forth  mean  in  this  /^     ra^  ^ 
case  ?  To  answer,  we  need  only  apply  the  prag-  ^p   /iA^^^UaM. 
matic  method.   What  do  believers  in  the  Abso-  j  j 

lute  mean  by  saying  that  their  belief  affords        UU^  f  V**^ 
them  comfort  ?    They  mean  that  since,  in  the 
Absolute  finite  evil  is  'overruled'  already,  we 
may,  therefore,  whenever  we  wish,  treat  the 

73 


\fU^ 


PRAGMATISM 

temporal  as  if  it  were  potentially  the  eternal,  be 
sure  that  we  can  trust  its  outcome,  and,  without 
sin,  dismiss  our  fear  and  drop  the  worry  of  our 
finite  responsibility.  In  short,  they  mean  that 
we  have  a  right  ever  and  anon  to  take  a  moral 
holiday,  to  let  the  world  wag  in  its  own  way, 
feeling  that  its  issues  are  in  better  hands  than 
ours  and  are  none  of  our  business. 

The  universe  is  a  system  of  which  the  indi- 
vidual members  may  relax  their  anxieties  occa- 
sionally, in  which  the  don't-care  mood  is  also 
right  for  men,  and  moral  holidays  in  order,  — 
that,  if  I  mistake  not,  is  part,  at  least,  of  what 
the  Absolute  is  *known-as,'  that  is  the  great 
difference  in  our  particular  experiences  which 
his  being  true  makes,  for  us,  that  is  his  cash- 
value  when  he  is  pragmatically  interpreted. 
Farther  than  that  the  ordinary  lay-reader  in 
philosophy  who  thinks  favorably  of  absolute 
idealism  does  not  venture  to  sharpen  his  con- 
ceptions. He  can  use  the  Absolute  for  so  much, 
and  so  much  is  very  precious.  He  is  pained  at 
hearing  you  speak  incredulously  of  the  Abso- 
lute, therefore,  and  disregards  your  criticisms 

74 


WHAT    PRAGMATISM    MEANS 

because  they  deal  with  aspects  of  the  concept- 
ion that  he  fails  to  follow. 

If  the  Absolute  means  this,  and  means  no 
more  than  this,  who  can  possibly  deny  the  truth 
of  it  ?  To  deny  it  would  be  to  insist  that  men 
should  never  relax,  and  that  holidays  are  never 

in  order.  QA-d^^ 

I  am  well  aware  how  odd  it  must  seem  to  /  o^  c/y^ 
some  of  you  to  hear  me  say  that  an  idea  is  'true'  ^  ^7.  tx/aw 
so  long  as  to  believe  it  is  profitable  to  our  lives.  f^0ijJjuLJ 
That  it  is  good,  for  as  much  as  it  profits,  you  ^ 
will  gladly  admit.    If  w^hat  we  do  by  its  aid  is 
good,  you  will  allow  the  idea  itself  to  be  good 
in  so  far  forth,  for  we  are  the  better  for  possess- 
ing it.    But  is  it  not  a  strange  misuse  of  the 
word  'truth,'  you  will  say,  to  call  ideas  also 
*true'  for  this  reason.^ 

To  answer  this  difficulty  fully  is  impossible 
at  this  stage  of  my  account.  You  touch  here 
upon  the  very  central  point  of  Messrs.  Schiller's, 
Dewey's  and  my  own  doctrine  of  truth,  which 
I  can  not  discuss  with  detail  until  my  sixth 
lecture.  Let  me  now  say  only  this,  that  truth 
is  one  species  of  good,  and  not,  as  is  usually  sup- 

75 


PRAGMATISM 

posed,  a  category  distinct  from  good,  and  co-or- 
dinate with  it.  The  true  is  the  name  of  whatever 
"proves  itself  to  he  good  in  the  way  of  belief, 
and  good,  too,  for  definite,  assignable  reasons. 
Surely  you  must  admit  this,  that  if  there  were 
no  good  for  life  in  true  ideas,  or  if  the  know- 
ledge of  them  were  positively  disadvantageous 
and  false  ideas  the  only  useful  ones,  then  the 
current  notion  that  truth  is  divine  and  precious, 
.J  and  its  pursuit  a  duty,  could  never  have  grown 

up  or  become  a  dogma.  In  a  world  like  that, 
our  duty  would  be  to  shun  truth,  rather.  But 
in  this  world,  just  as  certain  foods  are  not  only 
agreeable  to  our  taste,  but  good  for  our  teeth, 
our  stomach,  and  our  tissues ;  so  certain  ideas 
are  not  only  agreeable  to  think  about,  or  agree- 
able as  supporting  other  ideas  that  we  are  fond 
of,  but  they  are  also  helpful  in  life's  practical 
struggles.  If  there  be  any  life  that  it  is  really 
better  we  should  lead,  and  if  there  be  any  idea 
which,  if  believed  in,  would  help  us  to  lead  that 
life,  then  it  would  be  re^iWy  better  for  us  io  believe 
in  that  idea,  unless,  indeed,  belief  in  it  inci- 
dentally clashed  with  othe^*  greater  vital  benefits, 

76 


WHAT    PRAGMATISM    MEANS 

*What  would  be  better  for  us  to  believe'! 
This  sounds  very  like  a  definition  of  truth.  It 
comes  very  near  to  saying  *what  we  ought  to 
believe  ':  and  in  that  definition  none  of  you 
would  find  any  oddity.  Ought  we  ever  not  to 
believe  what  it  is  better  for  us  to  believe  ?  And 
can  we  then  keep  the  notion  of  what  is  better 
for  us,  and  what  is  true  for  us,  permanently 
apart  ? 

Pragmatism  says  no,  and  I  fully  agree  with 
her.  Probably  you  also  agree,  so  far  as  the  ab- 
stract statement  goes,  but  with  a  suspicion  that 
if  we  practically  did  believe  everything  that 
made  for  good  in  our  own  personal  lives,  we 
should  be  found  indulging  all  kinds  of  fancies 
about  this  world's  affairs,  and  all  kinds  of  senti- 
mental superstitions  about  a  world  hereafter. 
Your  suspicion  here  is  undoubtedly  well 
founded,  and  it  is  evident  that  something  hap- 
pens when  you  pass  from  the  abstract  to  the 
concrete  that  complicates  the  situation.  /p\   -fp   rP^ 

I  said  just  now  that  what  is  better  for  us  to     J  o^^JjfLz 
believe   is   true  unless  the   belief  incidentally 
clashes  with  some  other  vital  benefit.    Now  in 

77 


PRAGMATISM 

real  life  what  vital  benefits  is  any  particular 
belief  of  ours  most  liable  to  clash  with  ?  What 
indeed  except  the  vital  benefits  yielded  by  other 
beliefs  when  these  prove  incompatible  with  the 
first  ones  ?  In  other  words,  the  greatest  enemy 
of  any  one  of  our  truths  may  be  the  rest  of  our 
truths.  Truths  have  once  for  all  this  desperate 
instinct  of  self-preservation  and  of  desire  to 
extinguish  whatever  contradicts  them.  My 
belief  in  the  Absolute,  based  on  the  good  it  does 
me,  must  run  the  gauntlet  of  all  my  other  be- 
liefs. Grant  that  it  may  be  true  in  giving  me 
a  moral  holiday.  Nevertheless,  as  I  conceive  it, 
— and  let  me  speak  now  confidentially,  as  it 
were,  and  merely  in  my  own  private  person, 
—  it  clashes  with  other  truths  of  mine  whose 
benefits  I  hate  to  give  up  on  its  account.  It 
happens  to  be  associated  with  a  kind  of 
logic  of  which  I  am  the  enemy,  I  find  that  it 
entangles  me  in  metaphysical  paradoxes  that 
are  inacceptable,  etc.,  etc.  But  as  I  have 
enough  trouble  in  life  already  without  adding 
the  trouble  of  carrying  these  intellectual  in- 
consistencies,   I   personallj^   just  give   up  the 

78 


^^ 


WHAT    PRAGMATISM  MEANS 

Absolute.  I  just  ^aA:^?  my  moral  holidays;  orelse 
as  a  professional  philosopher,  I  try  to  justify 
them  by  some  other  principle. 

If  I  could  restrict  my  notion  of  the  Absolute 
to  its  bare  holiday-giving  value,  it  would  n't 
clash  with  my  other  truths.  But  we  can  not 
easily  thus  restrict  our  hypotheses.  They  carry 
supernumerary  features,  and  these  it  is  that 
clash  so.  My  disbelief  in  the  Absolute  means 
then  disbelief  in  those  other  supernumerary 
features,  for  I  fully  believe  in  the  legitimacy  of 
taking  moral  holidays.  (uuPi 

You  see  by  this  what  I  meant  when  I  called  ^^^/' 
pragmatism  a  mediator  and  reconciler  and  J  '  nc^^^A^t^^f^^ 
said,  borrowing  the  w^ord  from  Papini,  that  she 
*unstiffens'  our  theories.  She  has  in  fact  no 
prejudices  whatever,  no  obstructive  dogmas, 
no  rigid  canons  of  what  shall  count  as  proof. 
She  is  completely  genial.  She  will  entertain 
any  hypothesis,  she  will  consider  any  evidence. 
It  follow^s  that  in  the  religious  field  she  is  at 
a  great  advantage  both  over  positivistic  empir- 
icism, with  its  anti-theological  bias,  and  over 
religious  rationalism,  with  its  exclusive  interest 

79 


PRAGMATISM 

in  the  remote,  the  noble,  the  simple,  and  the 
abstract  in  the  way  of  conception. 

In  short,  she  widens  the  field  of  search  for 
God.  Rationalism  sticks  to  logic  and  the  empy- 
rean. Empiricism  sticks  to  the  external  senses. 
Pragmatism  is  willing  to  take  anything,  to  fol- 
low either  logic  or  the  senses  and  to  count  the 
humblest  and  most  personal  experiences.  She 
will  count  mystical  experiences  if  they  have 
practical  consequences.  She  will  take  a  God 
who  lives  in  the  very  dirt  of  private  fact  —  if 
that  should  seem  a  likely  place  to  find  him. 

Her  only  test  of  probable  truth  is  what  works 
best  in  the  way  of  leading  us,  what  fits  every 
part  of  life  best  and  combines  with  the  collect- 
ivity of  experience's  demands,  nothing  being 
omitted.  If  theological  ideas  should  do  this,  if 
the  notion  of  God,  in  particular,  should  prove 
to  do  it,  how  could  pragmatism  possibly  deny 
God's  existence.^  She  could  see  no  meaning 
in  treating  as  *  not  true'  a  notion  that  was  prag- 
matically so  successful.  What  other  kind  of 
truth  could  there  be,  for  her,  than  all  this  agree- 
ment with  concrete  reality? 

80 


WHAT    PRAGMATISM    MEANS 

In  my  last  lecture  I  shall  return  again  to  the 
relations  of  pragmatism  with  religion.  But  you 
see  already  how  democratic  she  is.  Her  man- 
ners are  as  various  and  flexible,  her  resources 
as  rich  and  endless,  and  her  conclusions  as 
friendly  as  those  of  mother  nature. 


Ill 

SOME    METAPHYSICAL    PROBLEMS 
PRAGMATICALLY  CONSIDERED 


LECTURE    III 

SOME    METAPHYSICAL     PROBLEMS 
PRAGMATICALLY    CONSIDERED 

I  AM  now  to  make  the  pragmatic  method  more 
familiar  by  giving  you  some  illustrations  of  its 
application  to  particular  problems.  I  will  begin 
with  what  is  driest,  and  the  first  thing  I  shall 
take  will  be  the  problem  of  Substance,  Every 
one  uses  the  old  distinction  between  substance 
and  attribute,  enshrined  as  it  is  in  the  very 
structure  of  human  language,  in  the  difference 
between  grammatical  subject  and  predicate. 
Here  is  a  bit  of  blackboard  crayon.  Its  modes, 
attributes,  properties,  accidents,  or  affections, 

use  which  term  you  will,  —  are  whiteness, 

friability,  cylindrical  shape,  insolubility  in  water, 
etc.,  etc.  But  the  bearer  of  these  attributes  is 
so  much  chalk,  which  thereupon  is  called  the 
substance  in  which  they  inhere.  So  the  attri- 
butes of  this  desk  inhere  in  the  substance 'wood,' 
those  of  my  coat  in  the  substance  'wool,'  and 
so  forth.  Chalk,  wood  and  wool,  show  again, 
in  spite  of  their  differences,  common  properties, 

85 


PRAGMATISM 

and  in  so  far  forth  they  are  themselves 
counted  as  modes  of  a  still  more  primal  sub- 
stance, matter,  the  attributes  of  which  are 
space-occupancy  and  impenetrability.  Simi- 
larly our  thoughts  and  feelings  are  affections 
or  properties  of  our  several  souls,  which  are 
substances,  but  again  not  wholly  in  their  own 
right,  for  they  are  modes  of  the  still  deeper 
substance  *  spirit.' 

Now  it  was  very  early  seen  that  all  we  know 
of  the  chalk  is  the  whiteness,  friability,  etc.> 
all  we  know  of  the  wood  is  the  combustibility 
and  fibrous  structure.  A  group  of  attributes  is 
what  each  substance  here  is  known-as,  they 
form  its  sole  cash-value  for  our  actual  experi- 
ence. The  substance  is  in  every  case  revealed 
through  them;  if  we  were  cut  off  from  thein 
we  should  never  suspect  its  existence;  and  if 
God  should  keep  sending  them  to  us  in  an 
unchanged  order,  miraculously  annihilating 
at  a  certain  moment  the  substance  that  sup- 
ported them,  we  never  could  detect  the  mo- 
ment, for  our  experiences  themselves  would  be 
unaltered.    Nominalists  accordingly  adopt  the 

86 


SOME  METAPHYSICAL  PROBLEMS 

opinion  that  substance  is  a  spurious  idea  due 
to  our  inveterate  human  trick  of  turning  names 
into  things.  Phenomena  come  in  groups  —  the 
chalk-group,  the  wood-group,  etc.,  —  and  each 
group  gets  its  name.  The  name  we  then  treat  as 
in  a  way  supporting  the  group  of  phenomena. 
The  low  thermometer  to-day,  for  instance,  is 
supposed  to  come  from  something  called  the 
'climate.'   Climate  is  really  only  the  name  for 
a  certain  group  of  days,  but  it  is  treated  as  if  it 
lay  behind  the  day,  and  in  general  we  place  the 
name,  as  if  it  were  a  being,  behind  the  facts  it 
is  the  name  of.  But  the  phenomenal  properties 
of  things,  nominalists  say,  surely  do  not  really 
inhere  in  names,  and  if  not  in  names  then  they 
do  not  inhere  in  anything.    They  adhere,  or 
cohere,  T8itheT,wifh  each  other,  and  the  notion  of 
a  substance  inaccessible  to  us,  which  we  think 
accounts  for  such  cohesion  by  supporting  it,  as 
cement  might  support  pieces  of  mosaic,  must 
be  abandoned.   The  fact  of  the  bare  cohesion 
itself  is  all  that  the  notion  of  the  substance 
signifies.    Behind  that  fact  is  nothing. 

Scholasticism  has  taken  the  notion  of  sub- 

87 


PRAGMATISM 

stance  from  common  sense  and  made  it  very 
technical  and  articulate.  Few  things  would 
seem  to  have  fewer  pragmatic  consequences 
for  us  than  substances,  cut  off  as  we  are  from 
every  contact  with  them.  Yet  in  one  case 
scholasticism  has  proved  the  importance  of  the 
substance-idea  by  treating  it  pragmatically.  I 
refer  to  certain  disputes  about  the  mystery 
of  the  Eucharist.  Substance  here  would  appear 
to  have  momentous  pragmatic  value.  Since 
the  accidents  of  the  wafer  don't  change  in  the 
Lord's  supper,  and  yet  it  has  become  the  very 
body  of  Christ,  it  must  be  that  the  change  is 
in  the  substance  solely.  The  bread-substance 
must  have  been  withdrawn,  and  the  divine  sub- 
stance substituted  miraculously  without  alter- 
ing the  immediate  sensible  properties.  But 
tho  these  don't  alter,  a  tremendous  difference 
has  been  made,  no  less  a  one  than  this,  that  we 
who  take  the  sacrament,  now  feed  upon  the 
very  substance  of  divinity.  The  substance-not ion 
breaks  into  life,  then,  with  tremendous  effect, 
if  once  you  allow  that  substances  can  separate 
from  their  accidents,  and  exchange  these  latter. 

88 


SOME  METAPHYSICAL  PROBLEMS 

This  is  the  only  pragmatic  application  of  the 
substance-idea  with  which  I  am  acquainted; 
and  it  is  obvious  that  it  will  only  be  treated  seri- 
ously by  those  who  already  believe  in  the  *real 
presence'  on  independent  grounds. 

Material  substance  was  criticised  by  Berkeley 
with  such  telling  effect  that  his  name  has  re- 
verberated through  all  subsequent  philosophy. 
Berkeley's  treatment  of  the  notion  of  matter 
is  so  well  known  as  to  need  hardly  more  than 
a  mention.  So  far  from  denying  the  external 
world  which  we  know,  Berkeley  corroborated 
it.  It  was  the  scholastic  notion  of  a  material 
substance  unapproachable  by  us,  behind  the 
external  world,  deeper  and  more  real  than  it, 
and  needed  to  support  it,  which  Berkeley  main- 
tained to  be  the  most  effective  of  all  reducers 
of  the  external  world  to  unreality.  Abolish 
that  substance,  he  said,  believe  that  God,  whom 
you  can  understand  and  approach,  sends  you 
the  sensible  world  directly,  and  you  confirm 
the  latter  and  back  it  up  by  his  divine  author- 
ity. Berkeley's  criticism  of  *  matter' was  con- 
sequently absolutely  pragmatistic.    Matter  is 

89 


PRAGMATISM 

known  as  our  sensations  of  colour,  figure, 
hardness  and  the  like.  They  are  the  cash-value 
of  the  term.  The  difference  matter  makes  to 
us  by  truly  being  is  that  we  then  get  such 
sensations;  by  not  being,  is  that  we  lack  them. 
These  sensations  then  are  its  sole  meaning. 
Berkeley  does  n't  deny  matter,  then;  he  simply 
tells  us  what  it  consists  of.  It  is  a  true  name 
for  just  so  much  in  the  way  of  sensations./ 

Locke,  and  later  Hume,  applied  a  similar 
pragmatic  criticism  to  the  notion  of  spiritual 
substance.  I  will  only  mention  Locke's  treat- 
ment of  our  'personal  identity.'  He  immedi- 
ately reduces  this  notion  to  its  pragmatic  value 
in  terms  of  experience.  It  means,  he  says,  so 
much  'consciousness,'  namely  the  fact  that  at 
one  moment  of  life  we  remember  other  mo- 
ments, and  feel  them  all  as  parts  of  one  and 
the  same  personal  history.  Rationalism  had  ex- 
plained this  practical  continuity  in  our  life  by 
the  unity  of  our  soul-substance.  But  Locke 
says:  suppose  that  God  should  take  away  the 
consciousness,  should  we  be  any  the  better 
for  having  still  the  soul-principle?     Suppose 

90 


SOME  METAPHYSICAL  PROBLEMS 

he  annexed  the  same  consciousness  to  different 
souls,  should  we,  as  we  realize  ourselves,  be  any 
the  worse  for  that  fact?  In  Locke's  day  the 
soul  was  chiefly  a  thing  to  be  rewarded  or  pun- 
ished. See  how  Locke,  discussing  it  from  this 
point  of  view,  keeps  the  question  pragmatic : 

"Suppose,"  he  says,  "one  to  think  himself 
to  be  the  same  soul  that  once  was  Nestor  or 
Thersites.  Can  he  think  their  actions  his  own 
any  more  than  the  actions  of  any  other  man 
that  ever  existed?  But  let  him  once  find  himself 
conscious  of  any  of  the  actions  of  Nestor,  he 
then  finds  himself  the  same  person  w  ith  Nestor 
...  In  this  personal  identity  is  founded  all 
the  right  and  justice  of  reward  and  punish- 
ment. It  may  be  reasonable  to  think,  no  one 
shall  be  made  to  answer  for  what  he  knows 
nothing  of,  but  shall  receive  his  doom,  his  con- 
sciousness accusing  or  excusing.  Supposing 
a  man  punished  now  for  what  he  had  done  in 
another  life,  whereof  he  could  be  made  to  have 
no  consciousness  at  all,  what  difference  is  there 
between  that  punishment  and  being  created 
miserable?" 

91 


PRAGMATISM 

Our  personal  identity,  then,  consists,  for 
Locke,  solely  in  pragmatically  definable  par- 
ticulars. Whether,  apart  from  these  verifiable 
facts,  it  also  inheres  in  a  spiritual  principle,  is 
a  merely  curious  speculation.  Locke,  compro- 
miser that  he  was,  passively  tolerated  the 
belief  in  a  substantial  soul  behind  our  con- 
sciousness. But  his  successor  Hume,  and  most 
empirical  psychologists  after  him,  have  denied 
the  soul,  save  as  the  name  for  verifiable  co- 
hesions in  our  inner  life.  They  redescend  into 
the  stream  of  experience  with  it,  and  cash  it 
into  so  much  small-change  value  in  the  way 
of  'ideas'  and  their  peculiar  connexions  with 
each  other.  As  I  said  of  Berkeley's  matter, 
the  soul  is  good  or  *true'  for  just  so  much,  but 
no  more. 

/  The  mention  of  material  substance  naturally 
suggests  the  doctrine  of  'materialism,'  but 
philosophical  materialism  is  not  necessarily 
knit  up  with  belief  in  'matter,'  as  a  metaphys- 
ical principle.  One  may  deny  matter  in  that 
sense,  as  strongly  as  Berkeley  did,  one  may  be 
a  phenomenalist  like  Huxley,  and  yet  one  may 

9^ 


SOME  METAPHYSICAL  PROBLEMS 

still  be  a  materialist  in  the  wider  sense,  of  ex- 
plaining higher  phenomena  by  lower  ones,  and 
leaving  the  destinies  of  the  world  at  the  mercy 
of  its  blinder  parts  and  forces.  It  is  in  this 
wider  sense  of  the  word  that  materialism  is  op- 
posed to  spiritualism  or  theism.  The  laws  of 
physical  nature  are  what  run  things,  material- 
ism says.  The  highest  productions  of  human 
genius  might  be  ciphered  by  one  who  had  com-  ;^ 
plete  acquaintance  with  the  facts,  out  of  their 
physiological  conditions,  regardless  whether 
nature  be  there  only  for  our  minds,  as  idealists 
contend,  or  not.  Our  minds  in  any  case  would 
have  to  record  the  kind  of  nature  it  is,  and  write 
it  down  as  operating  through  blind  laws  of 
physics.  This  is  the  complexion  of  present  day 
materialism,  which  may  better  be  called  natur- 
alism. Over  against  it  stands  'theism,'  or  what 
in  a  wide  sense  may  be  termed  'spiritualism.' 
Spiritualism  says  that  mind  not  only  wit- 
nesses and  records  things,  but  also  runs  and 
operates  them:  the  world  being  thus  guided, 
not  by  its  lower,  but  by  its  higher  element. 
Treated  as  it  often  is,  this  question  becomes 

93 


PRAGMATISM 

little  more  than  a  conflict  between  aesthetic  pre- 
ferences. Matter  is  gross,  coarse,  crass,  muddy; 
spirit  is  pure,  elevated,  noble;  and  since  it  is 
more  consonant  with  the  dignity  of  the  uni- 
verse to  give  the  primacy  in  it  to  what  appears 
superior,  spirit  must  be  affirmed  as  the  ruling 
principle.  To  treat  abstract  principles  as  final- 
ities, before  which  our  intellects  may  come  to 
rest  in  a  state  of  admiring  contemplation,  is  the 
great  rationalist  failing.  Spiritualism,  as  often 
held,  may  be  simply  a  state  of  admiration  for 
one  kind,  and  of  dislike  for  another  kind,  of 
abstraction.  I  remember  a  worthy  spiritualist 
professor  who  always  referred  to  materialism 
as  the 'mud-philosophy,' and  deemed  it  thereby 
refuted. 

To  such  spiritualism  as  this  there  is  an  easy 
answer,  and  Mr.  Spencer  makes  it  effectively. 
In  some  well-written  pages  at  the  end  of  the 
first  volume  of  his  Psychology  he  shows  us  that 
a  'matter'  so  infinitely  subtile,  and  perform- 
ing motions  as  inconceivably  quick  and  fine  as 
those  which  modern  science  postulates  in  her 
explanations,  has  no  trace  of  grossness  left. 

94 


SOME  METAPHYSICAL  PROBLEMS 

He  shows  that  the  conception  of  spirit,  as  we 
mortals  hitherto  have  framed  it,  is  itself  too 
gross  to  cover  the  exquisite  tenuity  of  nature's 
facts.  Both  terms,  he  says,  are  but  symbols, 
pointing  to  that  one  unknowable  reality  in 
which  their  oppositions  cease. 

To  an  abstract  objection  an  abstract  rejoin- 
der suffices ;  and  so  far  as  one's  opposition  to 
materialism  springs  from  one's  disdain  of  mat- 
ter as  something  'crass,'  Mr.  Spencer  cuts  the 
ground  from  under  one.  Matter  is  indeed 
infinitely  and  incredibly  refined.  To  any  one 
who  has  ever  looked  on  the  face  of  a  dead  child 
or  parent  the  mere  fact  that  matter  could  have 
taken  for  a  time  that  precious  form,  ought  to 
make  matter  sacred  ever  after.  It  makes  no 
difference  what  the  principle  of  life  may  be, 
material  or  immaterial,  matter  at  any  rate  co- 
operates, lends  itself  to  all  life's  purposes. 
That  beloved  incarnation  was  among  matter's 
possibilities. 

But  now,  instead  of  resting  in  principles, 
after  this  stagnant  intellectualist  fashion,  let 
us  apply  the  pragmatic  method  to  the  question. 

95 


PRAGMATISM 

/  What  do  we  mean  by  matter  ?  What  practical 
difference  can  it  make  no^t?  that  the  world  should 
be  run  by  matter  or  by  spirit  ?  I  think  we  find 
that  the  problem  takes  with  this  a  rather  differ- 
ent character. 

And  first  of  all  I  call  your  attention  to  a  curi- 
ous fact.  It  makes  not  a  single  jot  of  difference 
so  far  as  the  fast  of  the  world  goes,  whether  we 
deem  it  to  have  been  the  work  of  matter  or 
whether  we  think  a  divine  spirit  was  its  author. 

Imagine,  in  fact,  the  entire  contents  of  the 
world  to  be  once  for  all  irrevocably  given. 
Imagine  it  to  end  this  very  moment,  and  to 
have  no  future;  and  then  let  a  theist  and  a 
materialist  apply  their  rival  explanations  to  its 
history.  The  theist  shows  how  a  God  made 
it ;  the  materialist  shows,  and  we  will  suppose 
with  equal  success,  how  it  resulted  from  blind 
physical  forces.  Then  let  the  pragmatist  be 
asked  to  choose  between  their  theories.  How 
can  he  apply  his  test  if  a  world  is  already  com- 
pleted.^ Concepts  for  him  are  things  to  come 
back  into  experience  with,  things  to  make  us 
look  for  differences.    But  by  hypothesis  there 

96 


SOME  METAPHYSICAL  PROBLEMS 

is  to  be  no  more  experience  and  no  possible  dif- 
ferences can  now  be  looked  for.  Both  theories 
have  shown  all  their  consequences  and,  by 
the  hypothesis  we  are  adopting,  these  are  iden- 
tical. The  pragmatist  must  consequently  say 
that  the  two  theories,  in  spite  of  their  different- 
sounding  names,  mean  exactly  the  same  thing, 
and  that  the  dispute  is  purely  verbal.  [I  am 
supposing,  of  course,  that  the  theories  have 
been  equally  successful  in  their  explanations 
of  what  is.] 

For  just  consider  the  case  sincerely,  and  say 
what  would  be  the  worth  of  a  God  if  he  were 
there,  with  his  work  accomplished  and  his 
world  run  down.  He  would  be  worth  no  more 
than  just  that  world  was  worth.  To  that  amount 
of  result,  with  its  mixed  merits  and  defects,  his 
creative  power  could  attain  but  go  no  farther. 
And  since  there  is  to  be  no  future;  since  the 
whole  value  and  meaning  of  the  world  has  been 
already  paid  in  and  actualized  in  the  feelings 
that  went  with  it  in  the  passing,  and  now  go 
with  it  in  the  ending;  since  it  draws  no  sup- 
plemental significance  (such  as  our  real  world 

97 


\ 


PRAGMATISM 

draws)  from  its  function  of  preparing  some- 
thing yet  to  come;  why  then,  by  it  we  take 
God's  measure,  as  it  were.  He  is  the  Being  who 
could  once  for  all  do  that;  and  for  that  much  we 
are  thankful  to  him,  but  for  nothing  more.  But 
now,  on  the  contrary  hypothesis,  namely,  that 
the  bits  of  matter  following  their  laws  could 
make  that  world  and  do  no  less,  should  we  not 
be  just  as  thankful  to  them  ?  Wherein  should 
we  suffer  loss,  then,  if  we  dropped  God  as  an 
hypothesis  and  made  the  matter  alone  respon- 
sible.^ Where  would  any  special  deadness,  or 
crassness,  come  in  ?  And  how,  experience  being 
what  is  once  for  all,  would  God's  presence  in 
it  make  it  any  more  living  or  richer.? 

Candidly,  it  is  impossible  to  give  any  answer 
to  this  question.  The  actually  experienced  world 
is  supposed  to  be  the  same  in  its  details  on  either 
hypothesis,* the  same,  for  our  praise  or  blame,' 
as  Browning  says.  It  stands  there  indefeasibly : 
a  gift  which  can't  be  taken  back.  Calling  mat- 
ter the  cause  of  it  retracts  no  single  one  of  the 
items  that  have  made  it  up,  nor  does  calling 
God  the  cause  augment  them.    They  are  the 

98 


SOME  METAPHYSICAL  PROBLEMS 

God  or  the  atoms,  respectively,  of  just  that  and 
no  other  world.  The  God,  if  there,  has  been 
doing  just  what  atoms  could  do  —  appearing 
in  the  character  of  atoms,  so  to  speak  —  and 
earning  such  gratitude  as  is  due  to  atoms,  and 
no  more.  If  his  presence  lends  no  different 
turn  or  issue  to  the  performance,  it  surely  can 
lend  it  no  increase  of  dignity.  Nor  would  in- 
dignity come  to  it  were  he  absent,  and  did  the 
atoms  remain  the  only  actors  on  the  stage. 
When  a  play  is  once  over,  and  the  curtain  down, 
you  really  make  it  no  better  by  claiming  an  il- 
lustrious genius  for  its  author,  just  as  you  make 
it  no  worse  by  calling  him  a  common  hack. 

Thus  if  no  future  detail  of  experience  or  con- 
duct is  to  be  deduced  from  our  hypothesis, 
the  debate  between  materialism  and  theism  be- 
comes quite  idle  and  insignificant.  Matter  and 
God  in  that  event  mean  exactly  the  same  thing 
—  the  power,  namely,  neither  more  nor  less, 
that  could  make  just  this  completed  world  — 
and  thew^ise  man  is  he  who  in  such  a  case  would 
turn  his  back  on  such  a  supererogatory  discus- 
sion. Accordingly,  most  men  instinctively,  and 

99 


PRAGMATISM 

positivists  and  scientists  deliberately,  do  turn 
their  backs  on  philosophical  disputes  from 
which  nothing  in  the  line  of  definite  future  con- 
sequences can  be  seen  to  follow.  The  verbal 
and  empty  character  of  philosophy  is  surely 
a  reproach  with  which  we  are  but  too  familiar. 
If  pragmatism  be  true,  it  is  a  perfectly  sound 
reproach  unless  the  theories  under  fire  can  be 
shown  to  have  alternative  practical  outcomes, 
however  delicate  and  distant  these  may  be. 
The  common  man  and  the  scientist  say  they 
discover  no  such  outcomes,  and  if  the  meta- 
physician can  discern  none  either,  the  others 
certainly  are  in  the  right  of  it,  as  against  him. 
His  science  is  then  but  pompous  trifling;  and 
the  endowment  of  a  professorship  for  such  a 
being  would  be  silly. 

Accordingly,  in  every  genuine  metaphysical 
debate  some  practical  issue,  however  conjec- 
tural and  remote,  is  involved.  To  realize  this, 
revert  with  me  to  our  question,  and  place  your- 
selves this  time  in  the  world  we  live  in,  in  the 
world  that  has  a  future,  that  is  yet  uncompleted 
whilst  we  speak.   In  this  unfinished  world  the 

100 


SOME  METAPHYSICAL  PROBLEMS 

alternative  of  *  materialism  or  theism  ? '  is  in- 
tensely practical ;  and  it  is  worth  while  for  us  to 
spend  some  minutes  of  our  hour  in  seeing  that 
it  is  so. 

How,  indeed,  does  the  program  differ  for  us, 
according  as  we  consider  that  the  facts  of  ex- 
perience up  to  date  are  purposeless  configura- 
tions of  blind  atoms  moving  according  to  eter- 
nal laws,  or  that  on  the  other  hand  they  are 
due  to  the  providence  of  God?  As  far  as  the 
past  facts  go,  indeed,  there  is  no  difference. 
Those  facts  are  in,  are  bagged,  are  captured; 
and  the  good  that's  in  them  is  gained,  be  the 
atoms  or  be  the  God  their  cause.  There  are 
accordingly  many  materialists  about  us  to-day 
who,  ignoring  altogether  the  future  and  prac- 
tical aspects  of  the  question,  seek  to  eliminate 
the  odium  attaching  to  the  word  materialism, 
and  even  to  eliminate  the  word  itself,  by  show- 
ing that,  if  matter  could  give  birth  to  all  these 
gains,  why  then  matter,  functionally  considered, 
is  just  as  divine  an  entity  as  God,  in  fact  co- 
alesces with  God,  is  what  you  mean  by  God. 
Cease,  these  persons  advise  us,  to  use  either  of 

101 


PRAGMATISM 

these  terms,  with  their  outgrown  opposition. 
Use  a  term  free  of  the  clerical  connotations,  oti 
the  one  hand;  of  the  suggestion  of  grossness, 
coarseness,  ignobility,  on  the  other.  Talk  of  the 
primal  mystery,  of  the  unknowable  energy,  of 
the  one  and  only  power,  instead  of  saying  either 
God  or  matter.  This  is  the  course  to  which  Mr. 
Spencer  urges  us;  and  if  philosophy  were 
purely  retrospective,  he  would  thereby  pro- 
claim himself  an  excellent  pragmatist. 

But  philosophy  is  prospective  also,  and,  after 
finding  what  the  world  has  been  and  done,  and 
yielded,  still  asks  the  further  question  'what 
does  the  world  ^promise  ? '  Give  us  a  matter  that 
promises  success,  that  is  bound  by  its  laws  to 
lead  our  world  ever  nearer  to  perfection,  and 
any  rational  man  will  worship  that  matter  as 
readily  as  Mr.  Spencer  worships  his  own  so- 
called  unknowable  power.  It  not  only  has 
made  for  righteousness  up  to  date,  but  it  will 
make  for  righteousness  forever;  and  that  is  all 
we  need.  Doing  practically  all  that  a  God  can 
do,  it  is  equivalent  to  God,  its  function  is  a 
God's  function,  and  in  a  world  in  which  a  God 

102 


SOME  METAPHYSICAL  PROBLEMS 

would  be  superfluous;  from  such  a  world  a  God 
could  never  lawfully  be  missed.  *  Cosmic 
emotion'  would  here  be  the  right  name  for 
religion. 

But  is  the  matter  by  which  Mr.  Spencer's 
process  of  cosmic  evolution  is  carried  on  any 
such  principle  of  never-ending  perfection  as 
this.^  Indeed  it  is  not,  for  the  future  end  of 
every  cosmically  evolved  thing  or  system  of 
things  is  foretold  by  science  to  be  death  trag- 
edy; and  Mr.  Spencer,  in  confining  himself  to 
the  aesthetic  and  ignoring  the  practical  side  of 
the  controversy,  has  really  contributed  nothing 
serious  to  its  relief.  But  apply  now  our  prin- 
ciple of  practical  results,  and  see  what  a  vital 
significance  the  question  of  materialism  or 
theism  immediately  acquires. 

Theism  and  materialism,  so  indifferent  when 
taken  retrospectively,  point,  when  we  take 
them  prospectively,  to  wholly  different  out- 
looks of  experience.  For,  according  to  the 
theory  of  mechanical  evolution,  the  laws  of  re- 
distribution of  matter  and  motion,  though  they 
are  certainly  to  thank  for  all  the  good  hours 

103 


PRAGMATISM 

which  our  organisms  have  ever  yielded  us  and 
for  all  the  ideals  which  our  minds  now  frame, 
are  yet  fatally  certain  to  undo  their  work  again, 
and  to  redissolve  everything  that  they  have 
once  evolved.  You  all  know  the  picture  of  the 
last  state  of  the  universe,  which  evolutionary 
science  foresees.  I  can  not  state  it  better  than 
in  Mr.  Balfour's  words:  "The  energies  of  our 
system  will  decay,  the  glory  of  the  sun  will  be 
dimmed,  and  the  earth,  tideless  and  inert,  will 
no  longer  tolerate  the  race  which  has  for  a  mo- 
ment disturbed  its  solitude.  Man  will  go  down 
into  the  pit,  and  all  his  thoughts  will  perish. 
The  uneasy  consciousness  which  in  this  ob- 
scure corner  has  for  a  brief  space  broken  the 
contented  silence  of  the  universe,  will  be  at  rest. 
Matter  will  know  itself  no  longer.  'Imperish- 
able monuments'  and  *  immortal  deeds,'  death 
itself,  and  love  stronger  than  death,  will  be  as 
if  they  had  not  been.  Nor  will  anything  that  is, 
be  better  or  worse  for  all  that  the  labor,  genius, 
devotion,  and  suffering  of  man  have  striven 
through  countless  ages  to  effect."  ^ 

^  The  Foundations  of  Belief,  p.  30. 
104 


SOME  METAPHYSICAL  PROBLEMS 

That  is  the  sting  of  it,  that  in  the  vast  drift- 
ings  of  the  cosmic  weather,  though  many  a 
jewelled  shore  appears,  and  many  an  enchanted 
cloud-bank  floats  aw^ay,  long  lingering  ere  it  be 
dissolved  —  even  as  our  world  now  lingers,  for 
our  joy  —  yet  when  these  transient  products 
are  gone,  nothing,  absolutely  nothing  remains, 
to  represent  those  particular  qualities,  those 
elements  of  preciousness  which  they  may  have 
enshrined.  Dead  and  gone  are  they,  gone 
utterly  from  the  very  sphere  and  room  of  being. 
Without  an  echo;  without  a  memory;  without 
an  influence  on  aught  that  may  come  after, 
to  make  it  care  for  similar  ideals.  This  utter 
final  wreck  and  tragedy  is  of  the  essence  of  scien- 
tific materialism  as  at  present  understood.  The 
lower  and  not  the  higher  forces  are  the  eternal 
forces,  or  the  last  surviving  forces  within  the 
only  cycle  of  evolution  which  we  can  definitely 
see.  Mr.  Spencer  believes  this  as  much  as  any 
one;  so  why  should  he  argue  with  us  as  if  we 
were  making  silly  aesthetic  objections  to  the 
'grossness'  of  'matter  and  motion,'  the  prin- 
ciples   of   his    philosophy,  when  what  really 

105 


PRAGMATISM 

dismays  us  is  the  disconsolateness  of  its  ulte- 
rior practical  results? 

No,  the  true  objection  to  materialism  is  not 
positive  but  negative.  It  would  be  farcical  at 
this  day  to  make  complaint  of  it  for  what  it  is, 
for  *grossness.'  Grossness  is  w^hat  grossness 
does  —  we  now  know  that.  We  make  com- 
plaint of  it,  on  the  contrary,  for  w^hat  it  is  not 
—  not  a  permanent  warrant  for  our  more  ideal 
interests,  not  a  fulfiller  of  our  remotest  hopes. 
/  The  notion  of  God,  on  the  other  hand,  how- 
ever inferior  it  may  be  in  clearness  to  those 
mathematical  notions  so  current  in  mechanical 
philosophy,  has  at  least  this  practical  superi- 
ority over  them,  that  it  guarantees  an  ideal 
order  that  shall  be  permanently  preserved.  A 
world  with  a  God  in  it  to  say  the  last  word,  may 
indeed  burn  up  or  freeze,  but  we  then  think  of 
him  as  still  mindful  of  the  old  ideals  and  sure 
to  bring  them  elsewhere  to  fruition;  so  that, 
where  he  is,  tragedy  is  only  provisional  and 
partial,  and  shipwreck  and  dissolution  not  the 
absolutely  final  things.  This  need  of  an  eternal 
moral  order  is  one  of  the  deepest  needs  of  our 

106 


SOME  METAPHYSICAL  PROBLEMS 

breast.  And  those  poets, like  Dante  and  AVords- 
worth,  who  live  on  the  conviction  of  such  an 
order,  owe  to  that  fact  the  extraordinary  tonic 
and  consoling  power  of  their  verse.  Here  then, 
in  these  different  emotional  and  practical  ap- 
peals, in  these  adjustments  of  our  concrete  -^ 
attitudes  of  hope  and  expectation,  and  all  the 
delicate  consequences  which  their  differences 
entail,  lie  the  real  meanings  of  materialism 
and  spiritualism  —  not  in  hair-splitting  ab- 
stractions about  matter's  inner  essence,  or 
about  the  metaphysical  attributes  of  God. 
Materialism  means  simply  the  denial  that  the 
moral  order  is  eternal,  and  the  cutting  off  of 
ultimate  hopes ;  spiritualism  means  the  affirm- 
ation of  an  eternal  moral  order  and  the  letting 
loose  of  hope.  Surely  here  is  an  issue  genuine 
enough,  for  any  one  who  feels  it;  and,  as  long 
as  men  are  men,  it  will  yield  matter  for  a 
serious  philosophic  debate./ 

But  possibly  some  of  you  may  still  rally  to 
their  defence.  Even  whilst  admitting  that 
spiritualism  and  materialism  make  different 
prophecies  of  the  world's  future,  you  may  your- 

107 


PRAGMATISM 

selves  pooh-pooh  the  difference  as  something 
so  infinitely  remote  as  to  mean  nothing  for  a 
sane  mind.  The  essence  of  a  sane  mind,  you 
may  say,  is  to  take  shorter  views,  and  to  feel  no 
concern  about  such  chimseras  as  the  latter  end 
of  the  world.  Well,  I  can  only  say  that  if  you 
say  this,  you  do  injustice  to  human  nature. 
Religious  melancholy  is  not  disposed  of  by  a 
simple  flourish  of  the  word  insanity.  The  ab- 
solute things,  the  last  things,  the  overlapping 
things,  are  the  truly  philosophic  concerns;  all 
superior  minds  feel  seriously  about  them,  and 
the  mind  with  the  shortest  views  is  simply  the 
mind  of  the  more  shallow  man. 

The  issues  of  fact  at  stake  in  the  debate  are 
of  course  vaguely  enough  conceived  by  us  at 
present.  But  spiritualistic  faith  in  all  its  forms 
deals  with  a  world  of  ^promise,  while  material- 
ism's sun  sets  in  a  sea  of  disappointment.  Re- 
member what  I  said  of  the  Absolute :  it  grants 
us  moral  holidays.  Any  religious  view  does 
this.  It  not  only  incites  our  more  strenuous 
moments,  but  it  also  takes  our  joyous,  careless, 
trustful  moments,  and  it  justifies  them.     It 

108 


SOME  METAPHYSICAL  PROBLEMS 

paints  the  grounds  of  justification  vaguely 
enough,  to  be  sure.  The  exact  features  of  the 
saving  future  facts  that  our  belief  in  God 
insures,  will  have  to  be  ciphered  out  by  the 
interminable  methods  of  science :  we  can  study 
our  God  only  by  studying  his  Creation.  But 
we  can  enjoy  our  God,  if  we  have  one,  in  ad- 
vance of  all  that  labor.  I  myself  believe  that 
the  evidence  for  God  lies  primarily  in  inner 
personal  experiences.  When  they  have  once 
given  you  your  God,  his  name  means  at  least 
the  benefit  of  the  holiday.  You  remember 
what  I  said  yesterday  about  the  way  in  w^hich 
truths  clash  and  try  to  *down'  each  other. 
The  truth  of  '  God '  has  to  run  the  gauntlet  of 
all  our  other  truths.  It  is  on  trial  by  them  and 
they  on  trial  by  it.  Our  -final  opinion  about 
God  can  be  settled  only  after  all  the  truths  have 
straightened  themselves  out  together.  Let  us 
hope  that  they  shall  find  a  modus  Vivendi! 

Let  me  pass  to  a  very  cognate  philosophic 
problem,  the  questionof  design  innature.  God's 
existence  has  from  time  immemorial  been  held 
to  be  proved  by  certain  natural  facts.    Many 

109 


PRAGMATISM 

facts  appear  as  if  expressly  designed  in  view  of 
one  another.  Thus  the  woodpecker's  bill, 
tongue,  feet,  tail,  etc.,  fit  him  wondrously  for  a 
world  of  trees,  with  grubs  hid  in  their  bark  to 
feed  upon.  The  parts  of  our  eye  fit  the  laws  of 
light  to  perfection,  leading  its  rays  to  a  sharp 
picture  on  our  retina.  Such  mutual  fitting  of 
things  diverse  in  origin  argued  design,  it  was 
held;  and  the  designer  was  always  treated  as 
a  man-loving  deity. 

The  first  step  in  these  arguments  was  to 
prove  that  the  design  existed.  Nature  was  ran- 
sacked for  results  obtained  through  separate 
things  being  co-adapted.  Our  eyes,  for  in- 
stance, originate  in  intra-uterine  darkness,  and 
the  light  originates  in  the  sun,  yet  see  how 
they  fit  each  other.  They  are  evidently  made 
for  each  other.  Vision  is  the  end  designed, 
light  and  eyes  the  separate  means  devised  for 
its  attainment. 

It  is  strange,  considering  how  unanimously 
our  ancestors  felt  the  force  of  this  argument,  to 
see  how  little  it  counts  for  since  the  triumph 
of  the  darwinian  theory.    Darwin  opened  our 

110 


SOME  METAPHYSICAL  PROBLEMS 

minds  to  the  power  of  chance-happenings  to 
bring  forth  *fit'  results  if  only  they  have  time  to 
add  themselves  together.  He  showed  the  enor- 
mous waste  of  nature  in  producing  results  that 
get  destroyed  because  of  their  unfitness.  He 
also  emphasized  the  number  of  adaptations 
which,  if  designed,  would  argue  an  evil  rather 
than  a  good  designer.  Here,  all  depends  upon 
the  point  of  view.  To  the  grub  under  the  bark 
the  exquisite  fitness  of  the  woodpecker's  organ- 
ism to  extract  him  would  certainly  argue  a  dia- 
bolical designer.  

Theologians  have  by  this  time  stretched 
their  minds  so  as  to  embrace  the  darwinian 
facts,  and  yet  to  interpret  them  as  still  showing 
divine  purpose.  It  used  to  be  a  question  of 
purpose  against  mechanism,  of  one  or  the  other. 
It  was  as  if  one  should  say  "  My  shoes  are  evi- 
dently designed  to  fit  my  feet,  hence  it  is  im- 
possible that  they  should  have  been  produced 
by  machinery."  We  know  that  they  are  both: 
they  are  made  by  a  machinery  itself  designed 
to  fit  the  feet  with  shoes.  Theology  need  only 
stretch  similarly  the  designs  of  God.    As  the 

111 


PRAGMATISM 

aim  of  a  football-team  is  not  merely  to  get  the 
ball  to  a  certain  goal  (if  that  were  so,  they 
would  simply  get  up  on  some  dark  night  and 
place  it  there),  but  to  get  it  there  by  a  fixed 
machinery  of  conditions  —  the  game's  rules  and 
the  opposing  players;  so  the  aim  of  God 
is  not  merely,  let  us  say,  to  make  men  and 
to  save  them,  but  rather  to  get  this  done 
through  the  sole  agency  of  nature's  vast  ma- 
chinery. Without  nature's  stupendous  laws 
and  counter-forces,  man's  creation  and  per- 
fection, we  might  suppose,  would  be  too  in- 
sipid achievements  for  God  to  have  proposed 
them. 

This  saves  the  form  of  the  design-argument 
at  the  expense  of  its  old  easy  human  content. 
The  designer  is  no  longer  the  old  man-like 
deity.  His  designs  have  grown  so  vast  as  to  be 
incomprehensible  to  us  humans.  The  what  of 
them  so  overwhelms  us  that  to  establish  the 
mere  that  of  a  designer  for  them  becomes  of 
very  little  consequence  in  comparison.  We  can 
with  difiiculty  comprehend  the  character  of  a 
cosmic  mind  whose  purposes  are  fully  revealed 

112 


SOME  METAPHYSICAL  PROBLEMS 

by  the  strange  mixture  of  goods  and  evils  that 
we  find  in  this  actual  world's  particulars.  Or 
rather  we  cannot  by  any  possibility  compre- 
hend it.  The  mere  word  *  design'  by  itself  has 
no  consequences  and  explains  nothing.  It  is 
the  barrenest  of  principles.  The  old  ques- 
tion of  whether  there  is  design  is  idle.  The  real 
question  is  what  is  the  world,  whether  or  not 
it  have  a  designer  —  and  that  can  be  revealed 
only  by  the  study  of  all  nature's  particulars. 

Remember  that  no  matter  what  nature  may 
have  produced  or  may  be  producing,  the  means 
must  necessarily  have  been  adequate,  must  4 
have  been  fitted  to  that  production.  The  argu- 
ment from  fitness  to  design  would  consequently 
always  apply,  whatever  were  the  product's 
character.  The  recent  Mont-Pelee  eruption, 
for  example,  required  all  previous  history  to 
produce  that  exact  combination  of  ruined 
houses,  human  and  animal  corpses,  sunken 
ships,  volcanic  ashes,  etc.,  in  just  that  one 
hideous  configuration  of  positions.  France  had 
to  be  a  nation  and  colonize  Martinique.  Our 
country  had  to  exist  and  send  our  ships  there. 

113 


PRAGMATISM 

If  God  aimed  at  just  that  result,  the  means 
by  which  the  centuries  bent  their  influences 
towards  it,  showed  exquisite  intelligence.  And 
so  of  any  state  of  things  whatever,  either  in 
nature  or  in  history,  which  we  find  actually 
realized.  For  the  parts  of  things  must  always 
make  some  definite  resultant,  be  it  chaotic  or 
harmonious.  When  we  look  at  what  has  act- 
ually come,  the  conditions  must  always  appear 
perfectly  designed  to  ensure  it.  We  can  always 
say,  therefore,  in  any  conceivable  world,  of  any 
conceivable  character,  that  the  whole  cosmic 
machinery  may  have  been  designed  to  pro- 
duce it. 

Pragmatically,  then,  the  abstract  word  'de- 
sign' is  a  blank  cartridge.  It  carries  no  con- 
sequences, it  does  no  execution.  What  design.^ 
and  what  designer.^  are  the  only  serious  ques- 
tions, and  the  study  of  facts  is  the  only  way  of 
getting  even  approximate  answers.  Mean- 
while, pending  the  slow  answer  from  facts,  any 
one  who  insists  that  there  is  a  designer  and  who 
is  sure  he  is  a  divine  one,  gets  a  certain  prag- 
matic benefit  from  the  term  —  the  same,  in 

114 


SOME  METAPHYSICAL  PROBLEMS 

fact,  which  we  saw  that  the  terms  God,  Spirit, 
or  the  Absolute,  yield  us.  'Design,'  worthless 
tho  it  be  as  a  mere  rationalistic  principle  set 
above  or  behind  things  for  our  admiration,  be- 
comes, if  our  faith  concretes  it  into  something 
theistic,  a  term  of  promise.  Returning  with  it 
into  experience,  we  gain  a  more  confiding  out- 
look on  the  future.  If  not  a  blind  force  but 
a  seeing  force  runs  things,  we  may  reasonably 
expect  better  issues.  This  vague  confidence  in 
the  future  is  the  sole  pragmatic  meaning  at 
present  discernible  in  the  terms  design  and  de- 
signer. But  if  cosmic  confidence  is  right  not 
wrong,  better  not  worse,  that  is  a  most  import- 
ant meaning.  That  much  at  least  of  possible 
'truth'  the  terms  will  then  have  in  them. 

Let  me  take  up  another  well-worn  contro- 
versy, ii^jr^e^i^i^L^rtiiZdm.  Most  persons  who 
believe  in  what  is  called  their  free-will  do  so 
after  the  rationalistic  fashion.  It  is  a  principle, 
a  positive  faculty  or  virtue  added  to  man,  by 
which  his  dignity  is  enigmatically  augmented.  . 
HejQUght-feo-believe  it  for.this  reason.   Deter- 


115 


J^ 


PRAGMATISM 

minists,  who  deny  it,  who  say  that  individual 
men  originate  nothing,  but  merely  transmit  to 
the  future  the  whole  push  of  the  past  cosmos  of 
which  they  are  so  small  an  expression,  dimin- 
ish man.  He  is  less  admirable,  stripped  of  this 
creative  principle.  I  imagine  that  more  than 
half  of  you  share  our  instinctive  belief  in  f ree- 
I  will,  and  that  admiration  of  it  as  a  principle  of 
dignity  has  much  to  do  with  your  fidelity. 

But  free-will  has  also  been  discussed  prag- 
matically, and,  strangely  enough,  the  same 
pragmatic  interpretation  has  been  put  upon 
it  by  both  disputants.  You  know  how  large 
a  part  questions  of  accountability  have  played 
in  ethical  controversy.  To  hear  some  persons, 
one  would  suppose  that  all  that  ethics  aims  at 
is  a  code  of  merits  and  demerits.  Thus  does 
the  old  legal  and  theological  leaven,  the  inter- 
est in  crime  and  sin  and  punishment  abide 
with  us.  *  Who's  to  blame  .^  whom  can  we 
punish.?  whom  will  God  punish.?' — these 
preoccupations  hang  like  a  bad  dream  over 
man's  religious  history. 

So  both  free-will  and  determinism  have  been 

116 


SOME  METAPHYSICAL  PROBLEMS 

inveighed  against  and  called  absurd,  because 
each,  in  the  eyes  of  its  enemies,  has  seemed  to 
prevent  the  *  imputability '  of  good  or  bad  deeds 
to  their  authors.  Queer  antinomy  this!  Free--^^ 
will  means  novelty,  the  grafting  on  to  the  past 
of  something  not  involved  therein.  If  our  acts 
were  predetermined,  if  we  merely  transmitted 
the  push  of  the  whole  past,  the  free-willists  say, 
how  could  we  be  praised  or  blamed  for  any- 
thing.^ We  should  be  *  agents'  only,  not  'prin- 
cipals,' and  where  then  would  be  our  precious 
imputability  and  responsibility.^ 

But  where  would  it  be  if  we  had  free-will.^ 
rejoin  the  determinists.  If  a  *free'  act  be  a 
sheer  novelty,  that  comes  not  from  me,  the 
previous  me,  but  ex  nihilo,  and  simply  tacks 
itself  on  to  me,  how  can  7,  the  previous  I,  be 
responsible.'^  How  can  I  have  any  permanent 
character  that  will  stand  still  long  enough  for 
praise  or  blame  to  be  aw^arded.^  The  chaplet  of 
my  days  tumbles  into  a  cast  of  disconnected 
beads  as  soon  as  the  thread  of  inner  neces- 
sity is  draw^n  out  by  the  preposterous  in- 
determinist  doctrine.   Messrs.    Fullerton  and 

117 


PRAGMATISM 

McTaggart  have   recently  laid    about   them 
doughtily  with  this  argument. 

It  may  be  good  ad  hominem,  but  otherwise  it 
is  pitiful.  For  I  ask  you,  quite  apart  from 
other  reasons,  whether  any  man,  woman  or 
child,  with  a  sense  for  realities,  ought  not  to  be 
ashamed  to  plead  such  principles  as  either 
dignity  or  imputability.  Instinct  and  utility 
between  them  can  safely  be  trusted  to  carry  on 
the  social  business  of  punishment  and  praise. 
Lif  a  man  does  good  acts  we  shall  praise  him,  if 
he  does  bad  acts  we  shall  punish  him,  —  any- 
how, and  quite  apart  from  theories  as  to 
whether  the  acts  result  from  what  was  previ- 
ous in  him  or  are  novelties  in  a  strict  sense. 
To  make  our  human  ethics  revolve  about  the 
question   of  'merit'  is  a   piteous  unreality  — 

V^     God  alone  can  know  our  merits,  if  we  have 

any.    The  real  ground  for  supposing  free-will 

I  is  indeed  pragmatic,  but  it  has  nothing  to  do 

with  this  contemptible  right  to  punish  which 

has  made  such  a  noise  in  past  discussions  of 

^^^       the  subject. 

"^^^   Free-will  pragmatically  means  novelties  in 

M         ^^  118 


SOME  METAPHYSICAL  PROBLEMS 

the  world,  the  right  to  expect  that  in  its  deepest 
elements  as  well  as  in  its  surface  phenomena, 
the   future    may    not    identically  repeat    and 
imitate  the  past]  That  imitation  en  masse  is 
there,  who  can  deny?    The  general '  uniformity 
of  nature'  is  presupposed  by  every  lesser  law. 
But  nature  may  be  only  approximately  uni- 
form;  and  persons  in  whom  knowledge  of  the 
world's  past  has  bred  pessimism  (or  doubts 
as  to  the  world's  good  character,  which  be- 
come certainties  if  that  character  be  supposed 
eternally  fixed)  may  naturally  welcome  free- 
will as    a   melioristic   doctrine.     It  holds   up/^ 
improvement  as  at  least  possible;  whereas  de- 
terminism assures  us  that  our  whole  notion  of 
possibility  is  born  of  human  ignorance,  and 
that  necessity  and  impossibilityjaetween  them 
rule  the  destinies  of  the  world^ 
^^^^  Free-will   is   thus    a    general    cosmological 
theory  of  promise,  just  like  the  Absolute,  God, 
Spirit  or  Design.    Taken  abstractly,  no  one  of 
these  terms  has  any  inner  content,  none  of  them 
gives  us  any  picture,  and  no  one  of  them  would 
retain  the  least  pragmatic  value  in  a  world 

119 


PRAGMATISM 

whose  character  was  obviously  perfect  from 
the  start.  Elation  at  mere  existence,  pure  cos- 
mic emotion  and  delight,  would,  it  seems  to 
me,  quench  all  interest  in  those  speculations, 
if  the  world  were  nothing  but  a  lubberland  of 
happiness  already.  Our  interest  in  religious 
metaphysics  arises  in  the  fact  that  our  empir- 
ical future  feels  to  us  unsafe,  and  needs  some 
higher  guarantee.  If  the  past  and  present  were 
purely  good,  who  could  wish  that  the  future 
might  possibly  not  resemble  them.^  Who  could 
desire  free-will.'^  Who  would  not  say,  with 
Huxley,  '  let  me  be  wound  up  every  day  like 
a  watch,  to  go  right  fatally,  and  I  ask  no  better 
freedom.'  'Freedom'  in  a  world  already  per- 
fect could  only  mean  freedom  to  be  worse,  and 
who  could  be  so  insane  as  to  wish  that.'^  To  be 
necessarily  what  it  is,  to  be  impossibly  aught 
else,  would  put  the  last  touch  of  perfection  upon 
optimism's  universe.  Surely  the  only  possibility 
that  one  can  rationally  claim  is  the  possibility 
that  things  may  be  better.  That  possibility,  I 
need  hardly  say,  is  one  that,  as  the  actual  world 
goes,  we  have  ample  grounds  for  desiderating. 

120 


SOME  METAPHYSICAL  PROBLEMS 

<^  Free-will  thus  has  no  meaning  unless  it  be 
a  doctrine  of  relief.  As  such,  it  takes  its  place 
with  other  religious  doctrines.  Between  them, 
they  build  up  the  old  wastes  and  repair  the 
former  desolations.  Our  spirit,  shut  within 
this  courtyard  of  sense-experience,  is  always 
saying  to  the  intellect  upon  the  tower:  *  Watch- 
man, tell  us  of  the  night,  if  it  aught  of  promise 
bear,' and  the  intellect  gives  it  then  these  terms 
of  promise. 

Other  than  this  practical  significance,  the 
words  God,  free-will,  design,  etc.,  have  none. 
Yet  dark  tho  they  be  in  themselves,  or  intel- 
lectualistically  taken,  when  w^e  bear  them  into 
life's  thicket  with  us  the  darkness  there  grows 
light  about  us.  If  you  stop,  in  dealing  with  such 
words,  with  their  definition,  thinking  that  to 
be  an  intellectual  finality,  where  are  you.^  Stu- 
pidly staring  at  a  pretentious  sham!  "Deus  est 
Ens,  a  se,  extra  et  supra  omne  genus,  necessa- 
rium,  unum,  infinite  perfectum,  simplex,  im- 
mutabile,  immensum,  aeternum,  intelligens," 
etc.,  —  wherein  is  such  a  definition  really  in- 
structive.^   It  means  less  than  nothing,  in  its 

121 


PRAGMATISM 

pompous  robe  of  adjectives.  Pragmatism  alone 
can  read  a  positive  meaning  into  it,  and  for  that 
she  turns  her  back  upon  the  intellectualist 
point  of  view  altogether.  *  God's  in  his  heaven; 
all's  right  with  the  world!' —  That's  the  real 
heart  of  your  theology,  and  for  that  you  need 
no  rationalist  definitions. 

Why  should  n't  all  of  us,  rationalists  as  well 
as  pragmatists,  confess  this.^  Pragmatism,  so 
far  from  keeping  her  eyes  bent  on  the  imme- 
diate practical  foreground,  as  she  is  accused  of 
doing,  dwells  just  as  much  upon  the  world's 
remotest  perspectives. 

See  then  how  all  these  ultimate  questions 
turn,  as  it  were,  upon  their  hinges;  and  from 
looking  backwards  upon  principles,  upon  an 
erkenntnisstheoretische  Ich,  a  God,  a  Kausali- 
tdtsprinzip,  a  Design,  a  Free-will,  taken  in 
themselves,  as  something  august  and  exalted 
above  facts, — see,  I  say,  how  pragmatism  shifts 
the  emphasis  and  looks  forward  into  facts  them- 
selves. The  really  vital  question  for  us  all  is, 
What  is  this  world  going  to  be.^  What  is  life 
eventually  to  make  of  itself?    The  centre  of 

122 


SOME  METAPHYSICAL  PROBLEMS 

gravity  of  philosophy  must  therefore  alter  its  n 
place.  The  earth  of  things,  long  thrown  into 
shadow  by  the  glories  of  the  upper  ether,  must 
resume  its  rights.  To  shift  the  emphasis  in  this 
way  means  that  philosophic  questions  will  fall 
to  be  treated  by  minds  of  a  less  abstractionist 
type  than  heretofore,  minds  more  scientific  and 
individualistic  in  their  tone  yet  not  irreligious 
either.  It  will  be  an  alteration  in  *the  seat  of 
authority'  that  reminds  one  almost  of  the  pro- 
testant  reformation.  And  as,  to  papal  minds, 
protestantism  has  often  seemed  a  mere  mess 
of  anarchy  and  confusion,  such,  no  doubt,  will 
pragmatism  often  seem  to  ultra-rationalist 
minds  in  philosophy.  It  will  seem  so  much 
sheer  trash,  philosophically.  But  life  wags  on, 
all  the  same,  and  compasses  its  ends,  in  pro- 
testant  countries.  I  venture  to  think  that 
philosophic  protestantism  will  compass  a  not 
dissimilar  prosperity. 


IV 

THE  ONE  AND  THE  MANY 


LECTURE    IV 
THE    ONE  AND  THE   MANY 

tT  E  saw  in  the  last  lecture  that  the  pragmatic 
method,  in  its  dealings  with  certain  concepts, 
instead  of  ending  with  admiring  contemplation, 
plunges  forward  into  the  river  of  experience 
with  them  and  prolongs  the  perspective  by  their 
means.  Design,  free-will,  the  absolute  mind, 
spirit  instead  of  matter,  have  for  their  sole 
meaning  a  better  promise  as  to  this  world's  out- 
come. Be  they  false  or  be  they  true,  the  mean- 
ing of  them  is  this  meliorism.  I  have  sometimes 
thought  of  the  phenomenon  called  'total  re- 
flexion' in  Optics  as  a  good  symbol  of  the  rela- 
tion between  abstract  ideas  and  concrete  reali- 
ties, as  pragmatism  conceives  it.  Hold  a  tumbler 
of  water  a  little  above  your  eyes  and  look  up 
through  the  water  at  its  surface  —  or  better 
still  look  similarly  through  the  flat  wall  of  an 
aquarium.  You  will  then  see  an  extraordinarily 
brilliant  reflected  image  say  of  a  candle-flame, 
or  any  other  clear  object,  situated  on  the  op- 
posite side  of  the  vessel.   No  ray,  under  these 

127 


PRAGMATISM 

circumstances  gets  beyond  the  water's  surface ; 
every  ray  is  totally  reflected  back  into  the 
depths  again.  Now  let  the  water  represent  the 
world  of  sensible  facts,  and  let  the  air  above  it 
represent  the  world  of  abstract  ideas.  Both 
worlds  are  real,  of  course,  and  interact;  but 
they  interact  only  at  their  boundary,  and  the 
locus  of  everything  that  lives,  and  happens  to 
us,  so  far  as  full  experience  goes,  is  the  water. 
We  are  like  fishes  swimming  in  the  sea  of  sense, 
bounded  above  by  the  superior  element,  but 
unable  to  breathe  it  pure  or  penetrate  it.  We 
get  our  oxygen  from  it,  however,  we  touch  it 
incessantly,  now  in  this  part,  now  in  that,  and 
every  time  we  touch  it,  we  turn  back  into  the 
water  with  our  course  re-determined  and  re-en- 
ergized. The  abstract  ideas  of  which  the  air 
consists  are  indispensable  for  life,  but  irrespir- 
able  by  themselves,  as  it  were,  and  only  active 
in  their  re-directing  function.  All  similes  are 
halting,  but  this  one  rather  takes  my  fancy.  It 
shows  how  something,  not  sufficient  for  life  in 
itself,  may  nevertheless  be  an  effective  deter- 
minant of  life  elsewhere. 

128 


THE    ONE    AND    THE    MANY 

In  this  present  hour  I  wish  to  illustrate  the 
pragmatic  method  by  one  more  application.  I 
wish  to  turn  its  light  upon  the  ancient  problem 
of  *the  one  and  the  many.'  I  suspect  that  in 
but  few  of  you  has  this  problem  occasioned 
sleepless  nights,  and  I  should  not  be  aston- 
ished if  some  of  you  told  me  it  had  never  vexed 
you  at  all.  I  myself  have  come,  by  long  brood- 
ing over  it,  to  consider  it  the  most  central  of  all 
philosophic  problems,  central  because  so  preg- 
nant. I  mean  by  this  that  if  you  know  whether 
a  man  is  a  decided  monist  or  a  decided  plural- 
ist, you  perhaps  know  more  about  the  rest  of 
his  opinions  than  if  you  give  him  any  other 
name  ending  in  ist.  To  believe  in  the  one 
or  in  the  many,  that  is  the  classification  with 
the  maximum  number  of  consequences.  So 
bear  with  me  for  an  hour  w^hile  I  try  to  inspire 
you  with  my  own  interest  in  this  problem. 

Philosophy  has  often  been  defined  as  the 
quest  or  the  vision  of  the  world's  unity.  Few 
persons  ever  challenge  this  definition,  which  is 
true  as  far  as  it  goes,  for  philosophy  has  indeed 
manifested  above  all  things  its  interest  in  unity. 

129 


PRAGMATISM 

But  how  about  the  variety  in  things?  Is  that 
such  an  irrelevant  matter?  If  instead  of  using 
the  term  philosophy,  we  talk  in  general  of  our 
intellect  and  its  needs,  we  quickly  see  that  unity 
is  only  one  of  them.  Acquaintance  with  the  de- 
tails of  fact  is  always  reckoned,  along  w^ith  their 
reduction  to  system,  as  an  indispensable  mark 
of  mental  greatness.  Your  *  scholarly'  mind, 
of  encyclopedic,  philological  type,  your  man 
essentially  of  learning,  has  never  lacked  for 
praise  along  with  your  philosopher.  What  our 
intellect  really  aims  at  is  neither  variety  nor 
unity  taken  singly,  but  totality.^  In  this,  ac- 
quaintance with  reality's  diversities  is  as  im- 
portant as  understanding  their  connexion.  Cu- 
riosity goes  pari  passu  with  the  systematizing 
passion. 

In  spite  of  this  obvious  fact  the  unity  of 
things  has  always  been  considered  more  illus- 
trious, as  it  were,  than  their  variety.  When  a 
young  man  first  conceives  the  notion  that  the 
whole  world  forms  one  great  fact,  with  all  its 

*  Compare  A.  Bellanger:  Les  concepts  de  Cause,  et  Vactivite  inien- 
iionelle  de  VEsprit.    Paris,  Alcan,  1905,  p.  79  ff. 

130 


THE    ONE    AND    THE    MANY 

parts  moving  abreast,  as  it  were,  and  inter- 
locked, he  feels  as  if  he  were  enjoying  a  great 
insight,  and  looks  superciliously  on  all  who  still 
fall  short  of  this  sublime  conception.  Taken 
thus  abstractly  as  it  first  comes  to  one,  the  mon- 
istic  insight  is  so  vague  as  hardly  to  seem  worth 
defending  intellectually.  Yet  probably  every 
one  in  this  audience  in  some  way  cherishes  it. 
A  certain  abstract  monism,  a  certain  emotional 
response  to  the  character  of  oneness,  as  if  it 
were  a  feature  of  the  world  not  co-ordinate  with 
its  manyness,  but  vastly  more  excellent  and 
eminent,  is  so  prevalent  in  educated  circles  that 
we  might  almost  call  it  a  part  of  philosophic 
common  sense.  Of  course  the  world  is  One,  "- 
we  say.  How  else  could  it  be  a  world  at  all  .^ 
Empiricists  as  a  rule,  are  as  stout  monists  of 
this  abstract  kind  as  rationalists  are. 

The  difference  is  that  the  empiricists  are  less 
dazzled.  Unity  doesn't  blind  them  to  every- 
thing else,  doesn't  quench  their  curiosity  for 
special  facts,  whereas  there  is  a  kind  of  ration- 
alist who  is  sure  to  interpret  abstract  unity  mys- 
tically and  to  forget  everything  else,  to  treat  it 

131 


PRAGMATISM 

as  a  principle;  to  admire  and  worship  it; 
and  thereupon  to  come  to  a  full  stop  intellect- 
ually. 

*The  world  is  One!'  —  the  formula  may  be- 
come a  sort  of  number- worship.  *  Three'  and 
'seven'  have,  it  is  true,  been  reckoned  sacred 
numbers;  but,  abstractly  taken,  why  is  *one' 
more  excellent  than  *  forty- three,'  or  than  *  two 
million  and  ten' ?  In  this  first  vague  conviction 
of  the  world's  unity,  there  is  so  little  to  take 
hold  of  that  we  hardly  know  what  we  mean 
by  it. 

The  only  way  to  get  forward  with  our  notion 
is  to  treat  it  pragmatically.  Granting  the  one- 
ness to  exist,  what  facts  will  be  different  in  con- 
sequence.^ What  will  the  unity  be  known  as.^ 
The  world  is  One  —  yes,  but  how  one.  What 
is  the  practical  value  of  the  oneness  for  us. 

Asking  such  questions,  we  pass  from  the 
vague  to  the  definite,  from  the  abstract  to  the 
concrete.  Many  distinct  ways  in  which  a  one- 
ness predicated  of  the  universe  might  make 
a  difference,  come  to  view.  I  will  note  succes- 
sively the  more  obvious  of  these  ways. 

132 


THE    ONE    AND    THE    MxVNY 

1.  First,  the  world  is  at  least  one  subject  of 
discourse.  If  its  manyness  were  so  irremedi- 
able as  to  permit  no  union  whatever  of  its  parts, 
not  even  our  minds  could  *  mean '  the  whole  of 
it  at  once:  they  would  be  like  eyes  trying  to 
look  in  opposite  directions.  But  in  point  of 
fact  we  mean  to  cover  the  whole  of  it  by  our 
abstract  term  'world'  or  'universe,'  which  ex- 
pressly intends  that  no  part  shall  be  left  out. 
Such  unity  of  discourse  carries  obviously  no 
farther  monistic  specifications.  A  '  chaos,'  once 
so  named,  has  as  much  unity  of  discourse  as 
a  cosmos.  It  is  an  odd  fact  that  manymonists 
consider  a  great  victory  scored  for  their  side 
when  pluralists  say  *the  universe  is  many.' 
" ' The  Universe' !"  they  chuckle —  ''his  speech 
bewrayeth  him.  He  stands  confessed  of  mon- 
ism out  of  his  own  mouth."  Well,  let  things  be 
one  in  so  far  forth !  You  can  then  fling  such 
a  word  as  universe  at  the  whole  collection  of 
them,  but  what  matters  it  ?  It  still  remains  to 
be  ascertained  whether  they  are  one  in  any 
further  or  more  valuable  sense. 

£.  Are  they,  for  example,  continuous?  Can 

133 


PRAGMATISM 

you  pass  from  one  to  another,  keeping  always 
in  your  one  universe  without  any  danger  of 
falling  out?  In  other  words,  do  the  parts  of 
our  universe  hang  together,  instead  of  being  like 
detached  grains  of  sand? 

Even  grains  of  sand  hang  together  through 
the  space  in  which  they  are  embedded,  and  if 
you  can  in  any  way  move  through  such  space, 
you  can  pass  continuously  from  number  one 
of  them  to  number  two.  Space  and  time  are 
thus  vehicles  of  continuity  by  which  the  world's 
parts  hang  together.  The  practical  difference 
to  us,  resultant  from  these  forms  of  union,  is 
immense.  Our  whole  motor  life  is  based  upon 
them. 

3.  There  are  innumerable  other  paths  of 
practical  continuity  among  things.  Lines  of  m- 
fluence  can  be  traced  by  which  they  hang  to- 
gether. Following  any  such  line  you  pass  from 
one  thing  to  another  till  you  may  have  covered 
a  good  part  of  the  universe's  extent.  Gravity 
and  heat-conduction  are  such  all-uniting  influ- 
ences, so  far  as  the  physical  world  goes.  Elec- 
tric, luminous  and  chemical  influences  follow 

134 


THE    ONE    AND    THE    MANY 

similar  lines  of  influence.  But  opaque  and 
inert  bodies  interrupt  the  continuity  here,  so 
that  you  have  to  step  round  them,  or  change 
your  mode  of  progress  if  you  wish  to  get  far- 
ther on  that  day.  Practically,  you  have  then 
lost  your  universe's  unity,  so  far  as  it  was 
constituted  by  those  first  lines  of  influence. 

There  are  innumerable  kinds  of  connexion 
that  special  things  have  with  other  special 
things;  and  the  ensemble  of  any  one  of  these 
connexions  forms  one  sort  of  system  by  w^hich 
things  are  conjoined.  Thus  men  are  conjoined 
in  a  vast  network  ot  acquaintanceship.  Brown 
knows  Jones,  Jones  know^s  Robinson,  etc.; 
and  by  choosing  your  farther  intermediaries 
rightly  you  may  carry  a  message  from  Jones  to 
the  Empress  of  China,  or  the  Chief  of  the  Afri- 
can Pigmies,  or  to  any  one  else  in  the  inhabited 
w^orld.  But  you  are  stopped  short,  as  by  a  non- 
conductor, when  you  choose  one  man  wrong 
in  this  experiment.  What  may  be  called  love- 
systems  are  grafted  on  the  acquaintance-sys- 
tem. A  loves  (or  hates)  B ;  B  loves  (or  hates) 
C,  etc.  But  these  systems  are  smaller  than  the 

135 


PRAGMATISM 

great  acquaintance-system  that  they  presup' 

pose. 

Human  efforts  are  daily  unifying  the  world 
more  and  more  in  definite  systematic  ways. 
We  found  colonial,  postal,  consular,  commer- 
cial systems,  all  the  parts  of  which  obey  defin- 
ite influences  that  propagate  themselves  within 
the  system  but  not  to  facts  outside  of  it.  The 
result  is  innumerable  little  hangings-together 
of  the  world's  parts  within  the  larger  hangings- 
together,  little  worlds,  not  only  of  discourse  but 
of  operation,  within  the  w^der  universe.  Each 
system  exemplifies  one  type  or  grade  of  union, 
its  parts  being  strung  on  that  peculiar  kind  of 
relation,  and  the  same  part  may  figure  in  many 
different  systems,  as  a  man  may  hold  various 
offices  and  belong  to  several  clubs.  From  this 
*  systematic'  point  of  view,  therefore,  the  prag- 
matic value  of  the  world's  unity  is  that  all  these 
definite  networks  actually  and  practically  exist. 
Some  are  more  enveloping  and  extensive,  some 
less  so;  they  are  superposed  upon  each  other; 
and  between  them  all  they  let  no  individual 
elementary  part  of  the  universe  escape.   Enor- 

136 


THE    ONE    AND    THE    MANY 

mous  as  is  the  amount  of  disconnexion  among 
things  (for  these  systematic  influences  and  con- 
junctions follow  rigidly  exclusive  paths),  every- 
thing that  exists  is  influenced  in  some  way  by 
something  else,  if  you  can  only  pick  the  w^ay 
out  rightly.  Loosely  speaking,  and  in  general,  it 
may  be  said  that  all  things  cohere  and  adhere 
to  each  other  somehoiv,  and  that  the  universe 
exists  practically  in  reticulated  or  concaten- 
ated forms  which  make  of  it  a  continuous 
or  'integrated'  affair.  Any  kind  of  influence 
w^hatever  helps  to  make  the  w^orld  one,  so  far 
as  you  can  follow  it  from  next  to  next.  You 
may  then  say  that  *  the  w^orld  is  One,' —  mean- 
ing in  these  respects,  namely,  and  just  so  far 
as  they  obtain.  But  just  as  definitely  is  it  not 
One,  so  far  as  they  do  not  obtain;  and  there  is 
no  species  of  connexion  which  will  not  fail,  if, 
instead  of  choosing  conductors  for  it  you  choose 
non-conductors.  You  are  then  arrested  at  your 
very  first  step  and  have  to  write  the  world  down 
as  a  pure  many  from  that  particular  point  of 
view.  If  our  intellect  had  been  as  much  inter- 
ested in  disjunctive  as  it  is  in  conjunctive  rela- 

137 


PRAGMATISM 

tions,  philosophy  would  have  equally  success- 
fully celebrated  the  world's  disunion. 

The  great  point  is  to  notice  that  the  oneness 
and  the  manyness  are  absolutely  co-ordinate 
here.  Neither  is  primordial  or  more  essential 
or  excellent  than  the  other.  Just  as  with  space, 
whose  separating  of  things  seems  exactly  on 
a  par  with  its  uniting  of  them,  but  sometimes 
one  function  and  sometimes  the  other  is  what 
comes  home  to  us  most,  so,  in  our  general  deal- 
ings with  the  world  of  influences,  we  now  need 
conductors  and  now  need  non-conductors,  and 
wisdom  lies  in  knowing  which  is  which  at  the 
appropriate  moment. 

4.  All  these  systems  of  influence  or  non-in- 
fluence may  be  listed  under  the  general  pro- 
blem of  the  world's  causal  unity.  If  the  minor 
causal  influences  among  things  should  converge 
towards  one  common  causal  origin  of  them  in 
the  past,  one  great  first  cause  for  all  that  is, 
one  might  then  speak  of  the  absolute  causal 
unity  of  the  world.  God's  flat  on  creation's  day 
has  figured  in  traditional  philosophy  as  such 
an  absolute  cause  and  origin.    Transcendental 

138 


THE    ONE    AND    THE    MANY 

Idealism,  translating  'creation'  into  *  thinking' 
(or  'willing  to  think')  calls  the  divine  act 
*  eternal'  rather  than  'first';  but  the  union  of 
the  many  here  is  absolute,  just  the  same  —  the 
many  would  not  be,  save  for  the  One.  Against 
this  notion  of  the  unity  of  origin  of  all  things 
there  has  always  stood  the  pluralistic  notion 
of  an  eternal  self-existing  many  in  the  shape  of 
atoms  or  even  of  spiritual  units  of  some  sort. 
The  alternative  has  doubtless  a  pragmatic 
meaning,  but  perhaps,  as  far  as  these  lectures 
go,  we  had  better  leave  the  question  of  unity 
of  orio^in  unsettled. 

5.  The  most  important  sort  of  union  that 
obtains  among  things,  pragmatically  speaking, 
is  their  generic  unity.  Things  exist  in  kinds, 
there  are  many  specimens  in  each  kind,  and 
what  the  'kind'  implies  for  one  specimen,  it 
implies  also  for  every  other  specimen  of  that 
kind.  We  can  easily  conceive  that  every  fact 
in  the  w^orld  might  be  singular,  that  is,  unlike 
any  other  fact  and  sole  of  its  kind.  In  such  a 
world  of  singulars  our  logic  would  be  useless, 

for  logic  works  by  predicating  of  the  single  in- 

139 


PRAGMATISM 

stance  what  is  true  of  all  its  kind.  With  no  two 
things  alike  in  the  world,  we  should  be  unable 
to  reason  from  our  past  experiences  to  our  fu- 
ture ones.  The  existence  of  so  much  generic 
unity  in  things  is  thus  perhaps  the  most  mo- 
mentous pragmatic  specification  of  what  it 
may  mean  to  say  *the  world  is  One.'  Absolute 
generic  unity  would  obtain  if  there  were  one 
summum  genus  under  which  all  things  without 
exception  could  be  eventually  subsumed.  *  Be- 
ings,' 'thinkables,'  'experiences,'  would  be 
candidates  for  this  position.  Whether  the 
alternatives  expressed  by  such  words  have  any 
pragmatic  significance  or  not,  is  another  ques- 
tion which  I  prefer  to  leave  unsettled  just  now. 
6.  Another  specification  of  what  the  phrase 
'the  world  is  one'  may  mean  is  unity  of  pur- 
pose. An  enormous  number  of  things  in  the 
world  subserve  a  common  purpose.  All  the 
man-made  systems,  administrative,  industrial, 
military,  or  what  not,  exist  each  for  its  control- 
ling purpose.  Every  living  being  pursues  its 
own  peculiar  purposes.  They  co-operate,  ac- 
cording to  the  degree  of  their  development,  in 

140 


THE    ONE    AND    THE    MANY 

collective  or  tribal  purposes,  larger  ends  thus 
enveloping  lesser  ones,  until  an  absolutely  sin- 
gle, final  and  climacteric  purpose  subserved  by 
all  things  without  exception  might  conceivably 
be  reached.  It  is  needless  to  say  that  the  ap- 
pearances conflict  with  such  a  view.  Any  re- 
sultant, as  I  said  in  my  third  lecture,  may  have 
been  purposed  in  advance,  but  none  of  the 
results  we  actually  know  in  this  world  have  in 
point  of  fact  been  purposed  in  advance  in  all 
their  details.  Men  and  nations  start  with  a 
vague  notion  of  being  rich,  or  great,  or  good. 
Each  step  they  make  brings  unforeseen  chances 
into  sight,  and  shuts  out  older  vistas,  and  the 
specifications  of  the  general  purpose  have  to  be 
daily  changed.  What  is  reached  in  the  end  may 
be  better  or  worse  than  what  was  proposed, 
but  it  is  always  more  complex  and  different. 

Our  different  purposes  also  are  at  war  with 
each  other.  Where  one  can't  crush  the  other 
out,  they  compromise;  and  the  result  is  again 
different  from  what  any  one  distinctly  proposed 
beforehand.  Vaguely  and  generally,  much  of 
what  was  purposed  may  be  gained;  but  every- 

141 


PRAGMATISM 

thing  makes  strongly  for  the  view  that  our 
world  is  incompletely  unified  teleologically 
and  is  still  trying  to  get  its  unification  better 
organized. 

Whoever  claims  absolute  teleological  unity, 
saying  that  there  is  one  purpose  that  every 
detail  of  the  universe  subserves,  dogmatizes  at 
his  own  risk.  Theologians  who  dogmatize  thus 
find  it  more  and  more  impossible,  as  our  ac- 
quaintance with  the  warring  interests  of  the 
world's  parts  grows  more  concrete,  to  imagine 
what  the  one  climacteric  purpose  may  possibly 
be  like.  We  see  indeed  that  certain  evils  min- 
ister to  ulterior  goods,  that  the  bitter  makes  the 
cocktail  better,  and  that  a  bit  of  danger  or  hard- 
ship puts  us  agreeably  to  our  trumps.  We  can 
vaguely  generalize  this  into  the  doctrine  that 
all  the  evil  in  the  universe  is  but  instrumental 
to  its  greater  perfection.  But  the  scale  of  the 
evil  actually  in  sight  defies  all  human  tolerance ; 
and  transcendental  idealism,  in  the  pages  of  a 
Bradley  or  a  Royce,  brings  us  no  farther  than 
the  book  of  Job  did  —  God's  ways  are  not  our 
ways,  so  let  us  put  our  hands  upon  our  mouth. 

142 


THE    ONE    AND    THE    MANY 

A  God  who  can  relish  such  superfluities  of  hor- 
ror is  no  God  for  human  beings  to  appeal  to. 
His  animal  spirits  are  too  high.  In  other 
words  the  *  Absolute'  with  his  one  purpose, 
is  not  the  man-like  God  of  common  people. 

7.  ^^sthetic  union  among  things  also  obtains, 
and  is  very  analogous  to  teleological  union. 
Things  tell  a  story.  Their  parts  hang  together 
so  as  to  work  out  a  climax.  They  play  into  each 
other's  hands  expressively.  Retrospectively, 
we  can  see  that  altho  no  definite  purpose  pre- 
sided over  a  chain  of  events,  yet  the  events  fell 
into  a  dramatic  form,  with  a  start,  a  middle, 
and  a  finish.  In  point  of  fact  all  stories  end; 
and  here  again  the  point  of  view  of  a  many  is 
the  more  natural  one  to  take.  The  world  is  full 
of  partial  stories  that  run  parallel  to  one  an- 
other, beginning  and  ending  at  odd  times. 
They  mutually  interlace  and  interfere  at  points, 
but  we  can  not  unify  them  completely  in  our 
minds.  In  following  your  life-history,  I  must 
temporarily  turn  my  attention  from  my  own. 
Even  a  biographer  of  twins  would  have  to  press 
them  alternately  upon  his  reader's  attention. 

143 


PRAGMATISM 

It  follows  that  whoever  says  that  the  whole 
world  tells  one  story  utters  another  of  those 
monistic  dogmas  that  a  man  believes  at  his 
risk.  It  is  easy  to  see  the  world's  history  plural- 
istically, as  a  rope  of  which  each  fibre  tells  a 
separate  tale;  but  to  conceive  of  each  cross- 
section  of  the  rope  as  an  absolutely  single  fact, 
and  to  sum  the  whole  longitudinal  series  into 
one  being  living  an  undivided  life,  is  harder.  We 
have  indeed  the  analogy  of  embryology  to  help 
us.  The  microscopist  makes  a  hundred  flat 
cross-sections  of  a  given  embryo,  and  mentally 
unites  them  into  one  solid  whole.  But  the  great 
world's  ingredients,  so  far  as  they  are  beings, 
seem,  like  the  rope's  fibres,  to  be  discontinu- 
ous, cross-wise,  and  to  cohere  only  in  the  longi- 
tudinal direction.  Followed  in  that  direction 
they  are  many.  Even  the  embryologist,  when 
he  follows  the  development  of  his  object,  has  to 
treat  the  history  of  each  single  organ  in  turn. 
Absolute  aesthetic  union  is  thus  another  barely 
abstract  ideal.  The  world  appears  as  some- 
thing more  epic  than  dramatic. 

So  far,  then,  we  see  how  the  world  is  unified 

144 


THE    ONE    AND    THE    MANY 

by  its  many  systems,  kinds,  purposes,  and 
dramas.  That  there  is  more  union  in  all  these 
ways  than  openly  appears  is  certainly  true. 
That  there  may  be  one  sovereign  purpose, 
system,  kind,  and  story,  is  a  legitimate  hypo- 
thesis. All  I  say  here  is  that  it  is  rash  to 
affirm  this  dogmatically  without  better  evi- 
dence than  we  possess  at  present. 

8.  The  great  monistic  deiikmittel  for  a  hun- 
dred years  past  has  been  the  notion  of  the  one 
Knower.  The  many  exist  only  as  objects  for 
his  thought  —  exist  in  his  dream,  as  it  were; 
and  as  he  knows  them,  they  have  one  purpose, 
form  one  system,  tell  one  tale  for  him.  This 
notion  of  an  all  enveloping  noetic  unity  in  things 
is  the  sublimest  achievement  of  intellectualist 
philosophy.  Those  who  believe  in  the  Abso- 
lute, as  the  all-knower  is  termed,  usually  say 
that  they  do  so  for  coercive  reasons,  which 
clear  thinkers  can  not  evade.  The  Absolute 
has  far-reaching  practical  consequences,  to 
some  of  which  I  drew  attention  in  my  second 
lecture.  Many  kinds  of  difference  important 
to  us  would  surely  follow  from  its  being  true, 

145 


PRAGMATISM 

I  can  not  here  enter  into  all  the  logical  proofs 
of  such  a  Being's  existence,  farther  than  to  say 
that  none  of  them  seem  to  me  sound.  I  must 
therefore  treat  the  notion  of  an  All-Knower 
simply  as  an  hypothesis,  exactly  on  a  par  logic- 
ally with  the  pluralist  notion  that  there  is  no 
point  of  view,  no  focus  of  information  extant, 
from  which  the  entire  content  of  the  universe 
is  visible  at  once.  **  God's  conscience,"  says 
Professor  Royce,^  *' forms  in  its  wholeness  one 
luminously  transparent  conscious  moment"  — 
this  is  the  type  of  noetic  unity  on  which  ration- 
alism insists.  Empiricism  on  the  other  hand 
is  satisfied  with  the  type  of  noetic  unity  that  is 
humanly  familiar.  Everything  gets  known  by 
some  knower  along  with  something  else;  but 
the  knowers  may  in  the  end  be  irreducibly 
many,  and  the  greatest  knower  of  them  all  may 
yet  not  know  the  whole  of  everything,  or  even 
know  what  he  does  know  at  one  single  stroke : 
—  he  may  be  liable  to  forget.  Whichever  type 
obtained,  the  world  would  still  be  a  universe 
noetically.    Its  parts  would  be  conjoined  by 

1  The  Conception  of  God,  New  York,  1897,  p.  292. 
146 


THE    ONE    AND    THE    MANY 

knowledge,  but  in  the  one  case  the  knowledge 
would  be  absolutely  unified,  in  the  other  it 
would  be  strung  along  and  overlapped. 

The  notion  of  one  instantaneous  or  eternal 
Knower  —  either    adjective    here    means    the 
same  thing  —  is,  as  I  said,  the  great  intellect- 
ualist  achievement  of  our  time.    It  has  prac- 
tically  driven   out   that  conception   of   'Sub- 
stance'   w^hich   earlier   philosophers   set   such 
store  by,  and  by  which  so  much  unifying  work 
used  to  be  done  —  universal  substance  which 
alone  has  being  in  and  from  itself,  and  of  which 
all  the  particulars  of  experience  are  but  forms 
to  which  it  gives  support.    Substance  has  suc- 
cumbed to  the  pragmatic  criticisms  of  the  Eng- 
lish school.    It  appears  now  only  as  another 
name  for  the  fact  that  phenomena  as  they  come 
are  actually  grouped    and  given  in  coherent 
forms,  the  very  forms  in  w^hich  w^e  finite  know- 
ers  experience  or  think  them  together.   These 
forms  of  conjunction  are  as  much  parts  of  the 
tissue  of  experience  as  are  the   terms  which 
they   connect;    and   it   is   a   great   pragmatic 
achievement  for  recent  idealism  to  have  made 

147 


PRAGMATISM 

the  world  hang  together  in  these  directly  re 
presentable  ways  instead  of  drawing  its  unity 
from  the  *  inherence'  of  its  parts — whatever 
that  may  mean  —  in  an  unimaginable  principle 
behind  the  scenes. 

*The  world  is  One,'  therefore,  just  so  far  as 
we  experience  it  to  be  cQnaatenateLi  One  by 
as  many  definite  conjunctions  as  appear.  But 
then  also  not  One  by  just  as  many  definite  (dis- 
junctions as  we  find.  The  oneness  and  the 
manyness  of  it  thus  obtain  in  respects  vv'hich 
can  be  separately  named.  It  is  neither  a  uni- 
verse pure  and  simple  nor  a  multiverse  pure 
and  simple.  And  its  various  manners  of  being 
One  suggest,  for  their  accurate  ascertainment, 
so  many  distinct  programs  of  scientific  work. 
Thus  the  pragmatic  question  'What  is  the  one- 
ness known  as  ?  What  practical  difference  will 
it  make  ? '  saves  us  from  all  feverish  excitement 
over  it  as  a  principle  of  sublimity  and  carries 
us  forward  into  the  stream  of  experience  with 
a  cool  head.  The  stream  may  indeed  reveal 
far  more  connexion  and  union  than  we  now 
suspect,  but  we  are  not  entitled  on  pragmatic 

148 


THE    ONE    AND    THE    MANY 

principles  to  claim    absolute   oneness   in   any 
respect  in  advance. 

It  is  so  difficult  to  see  definitely  what  abso- 
lute oneness  can  mean,  that  probably  the 
majority  of  you  are  satisfied  with  the  sober 
attitude  which  we  have  reached.  Nevertheless 
there  are  possibly  some  radically  monistic  souls 
among  you  who  are  not  content  to  leave  the 
one  and  the  many  on  a  par.  Union  of  various 
grades,  union  of  diverse  types,  union  that  stops 
at  non-conductors,  union  that  merely  goes  from 
next  to  next,  and  means  in  many  cases  outer 
nextness  only,  and  not  a  more  internal  bond, 
union  of  concatenation,  in  short;  all  that  sort  of 
thing  seems  to  you  a  halfway  stage  of  thought. 
The  oneness  of  things,  superior  to  their  many- 
ness,  you  think  must  also  be  more  deeply  true, 
must  be  the  more  real  aspect  of  the  world.  The 
pragmatic  view%  you  are  sure,  gives  us  a  uni- 
verse imperfectly  rational.  The  real  universe 
must  form  an  unconditional  unit  of  being,  some- 
thing consolidated,  w^ith  its  parts  co-implicated 
through  and  through.  Only  then  could  w^e 
consider  our  estate  completely  rational. 

149 


PRAGMATISM 

There  is  no  doubt  whatever  that  this  ultra- 
monistic  way  of  thinking  means  a  great  deal  to 
many  minds.  '*  One  Life,  One  Truth,  one  Love, 
one  Principle, One  Good, One  God" — I  quote 
from  a  Christian  Science  leaflet  which  the  day's 
mail  brings  into  my  hands  —  beyond  doubt 
such  a  confession  of  faith  has  pragmatically  an 
emotional  value,  and  beyond  doubt  the  word 
*one'  contributes  to  the  value  quite  as  much  as 
the  other  words.  But  if  we  try  to  realize  intel- 
lectually what  we  can  possibly  mean  by  such  a 
glut  of  oneness  we  are  thrown  right  back  upon 
our  pragmatistic  determinations  again.  It 
means  either  the  mere  name  One,  the  universe 
of  discourse;  or  it  means  the  sum  total  of  all 
the  ascertainable  particular  conjunctions  and 
concatenations ;  or,  finally,  it  means  some  one 
vehicle  of  conjunction  treated  as  all-inclusive, 
like  one  origin,  one  purpose,  or  one  knower. 
In  point  of  fact  it  always  means  one  knower 
to  those  who  take  it  intellectually  to-day.  The 
one  knower  involves,  they  think,  the  other 
forms  of  conjunction.    His  world  must  have 

all  its  parts  co-implicated  in  the  one  logical- 

150 


THE    ONE    AND    THE    MANY 

sesthetical-teleological    unit-picture    which    is 
his  eternal  dream. 

The  character  of  the  absolute  knower's 
picture  is  however  so  impossible  for  us  to  re- 
present clearly,  that  we  may  fairly  suppose 
that  the  authority  w^hich  absolute  monism  un- 
doubtedly possesses,  and  probably  always  w^ill 
possess  over  some  persons,  draws  its  strength 
far  less  from  intellectual  than  from  mystical 
grounds.  To  interpret  absolute  monism  worth- 
ily, be  a  mystic.  Mystical  states  of  mind  in 
every  degree  are  shown  by  history,  usually  tho 
not  always,  to  make  for  the  monistic  view. 
This  is  no  proper  occasion  to  enter  upon  the 
general  subject  of  mysticism,  but  I  will  quote 
one  mystical  pronouncement  to  show  just  w^hat 
I  mean.  The  paragon  of  all  monistic  systems 
is  the  Vedanta  philosophy  of  Hindostan,  and 
the  paragon  of  Vedantist  missionaries  was  the 
late  Swami  Vivekananda  who  visited  our  land 
some  years  ago.  The  method  of  Vedantism 
is  the  mystical  method.  You  do  not  reason, 
but  after  going  through  a  certain  discipline  you 
see,  and  having  seen,  you  can  report  the  truth. 

151 


PRAGMATISM 

Vivekananda  thus  reports  the  truth  In  one  of 
his  lectures  here: 

"Where  is  there  any  more  misery  for  him 
who  sees  this  Oneness  in  the  universe,  this 
Oneness  of  life,  Oneness  of  everything?  .  .  , 
This  separation  between  man  and  man,  man 
and  woman,  man  and  child,  nation  from  na- 
tion, earth  from  moon,  moon  from  sun,  this 
separation  between  atom  and  atom  is  the  cause 
really  of  all  the  misery,  and  the  Vedanta  says 
this  separation  does  not  exist,  it  is  not  real.  It 
is  merely  apparent,  on  the  surface.  In  the 
heart  of  things  there  is  unity  still.  If  you  go  in- 
side you  find  that  unity  between  man  and  man, 
women  and  children,  races  and  races,  high  and 
low,  rich  and  poor,  the  gods  and  men :  all  are 
One,  and  animals  too,  if  you  go  deep  enough, 
and  he  who  has  attained  to  that  has  no  more 
delusion.  .  .  .  Where  is  there  any  more  delu- 
sion for  him.?  What  can  delude  him.?  He 
knows  the  reality  of  everything,  the  secret  of 
everything.  Where  is  there  any  more  misery 
for  him.?  What  does  he  desire  ?  He  has  traced 
the  reality  of  everything  unto  the  Lord,  that 

]52 


THE    ONE    AND    THE    MANY 

centre,  that  Unity  of  everything,  and  that  is 
Eternal  Bliss,  Eternal  Knowledge,  Eternal 
Existence.  Neither  death  nor  disease  nor  sor- 
row nor  misery  nor  discontent  is  There  .  .  . 
In  the  Centre,  the  reality,  there  is  no  one  to  be 
mourned  for,  no  one  to  be  sorry  for.  He  has 
penetrated  everything,  the  Pure  One,  the 
Formless,  the  Bodiless,  the  Stainless,  He  the 
Know^er,  He  the  great  Poet,  the  Self-Existent, 
He  w  ho  is  giving  to  every  one  what  he  de- 
serves." 

Observe  how  radical  the  character  of  the 
monism  here  is.  Separation  is  not  simply  over- 
come by  the  One,  it  is  denied  to  exist.  There 
is  no  many.  We  are  not  parts  of  the  One;  It 
has  no  parts;  and  since  in  a  sense  we  undeni- 
ably are,  it  must  be  that  each  of  us  is  the  One, 
indivisibly  and  totally.  An  Absolute  One,  and 
I  that  One,  —  surely  we  have  here  a  religion 
which,  emotionally  considered,  has  a  high 
pragmatic  value;  it  imparts  a  perfect  sumptu- 
osity  of  security.  As  our  Swami  says  in  another 
place : 

"When  man  has  seen  himself  as  One  with 

153 


PRAGMATISM 

the  infinite  Being  of  the  universe,  when  all 
separateness  has  ceased,  when  all  men,  all  wo- 
men, all  angels,  all  gods,  all  animals,  all  plants, 
the  whole  universe  has  been  melted  into  that 
oneness,  then  all  fear  disappears.  Whom  to 
fear  ?  Can  I  hurt  myself  ?  Can  I  kill  myself  ? 
Can  I  injure  myself?  Do  you  fear  yourself? 
Then  will  all  sorrow  disappear.  What  can 
cause  me  sorrow  ?  I  am  the  One  Existence  of 
the  universe.  Then  all  jealousies  will  disappear; 
of  whom  to  be  jealous  ?  Of  myself  ?  Then  all 
bad  feelings  disappear.  Against  whom  shall  I 
have  this  bad  feeling  ?  Against  myself  ?  There 
is  none  in  the  universe  but  me  .  .  .  kill  out 
this  differentiation,  kill  out  this  superstition 
that  there  are  many.  *  He  who,  in  this  world  of 
many,  sees  that  One;  he  who,  in  this  mass  of 
insentiency,  sees  that  One  Sentient  Being;  he 
who  in  this  world  of  shadow,  catches  that  Real- 
ity, unto  him  belongs  eternal  peace,  unto  none 
else,  unto  none  else.'  " 

We  all  have  some  ear  for  this  monistic 
music:  it  elevates  and  reassures.  We  all  have 
at  least  the  germ  of  mysticism  in  us.  And  when 

154 


THE    ONE    AND    THE    MANY 

our  idealists  recite  their  arguments  for  the  Ab- 
solute, saying  that  the  slightest  union  admitted 
anywhere  carries  logically  absolute  Oneness 
with  it,  and  that  the  slightest  separation  ad- 
mitted anywhere  logically  carries  disunion 
remediless  and  complete,  I  cannot  help  sus- 
pecting that  the  palpable  weak  places  in  the 
intellectual  reasonings  they  use  are  protected 
from  their  own  criticism  by  a  mystical  feeling 
that,  logic  or  no  logic,  absolute  Oneness  must 
somehow  at  any  cost  be  true.  Oneness  over- 
comes moral  separateness  at  any  rate.  In  the 
passion  of  love  we  have  the  mystic  germ  of 
what  might  mean  a  total  union  of  all  sentient 
life.  This  mystical  germ  wakes  up  in  us  on 
hearing  the  monistic  utterances,  acknowledges 
their  authority,  and  assigns  to  intellectual  con- 
siderations a  secondary  place. 

I  will  dwell  no  longer  on  these  religious  and 
moral  aspects  of  the  question  in  this  lecture. 
When  I  come  to  my  final  lecture  there  will  be 
something  more  to  say. 

Leave  then  out  of  consideration  for  the  mo- 
ment the  authority  which  mystical  insights  may 

155 


PRAGMATISM 

be  conjectured  eventually  to  possess;  treat  the 
problem  of  the  One  and  the  Many  in  a  purely 
intellectual  way;  and  we  see  clearly  enough 
where  pragmatism  stands.  With  her  criterion 
of  the  practical  differences  that  theories  make, 
we  see  that  she  must  equally  abjure  absolute 
monism  and  absolute  pluralism.  The  world  is 
One  just  so  far  as  its  parts  hang  together  by 
any  definite  connexion.  It  is  many  just  so  far 
as  any  definite  connexion  fails  to  obtain.  And 
finally  it  is  growling  more  and  more  unified 
by  those  systems  of  connexion  at  least  which 
human  energy  keeps  framing  as  time  goes  on. 
It  is  possible  to  imagine  alternative  universes 
to  the  one  we  know,  in  which  the  most  various 
grades  and  types  of  union  should  be  embodied. 
Thus  the  lowest  grade  of  universe  would  be  a 
world  of  mere  withness,  of  which  the  parts  were 
only  strung  together  by  the  conjunction  'and.' 
Such  a  universe  is  even  now  the  collection  of 
our  several  inner  lives.  The  spaces  and  times 
of  your  imagination,  the  objects  and  events  of 
your  day-dreams  are  not  only  more  or  less  in- 
coherent inter  se,  but  are  wholly  out  of  definite 

15G 


THE    ONE    AND    THE    MANY 

relation  ^vith  the  similar  contents  of  any  one 
else's  mind.  Our  various  reveries  now  as  we 
sit  here  compenetrate  each  other  idly  without 
influencing  or  interfering.  They  coexist,  but  in 
no  order  and  in  no  receptacle,  being  the  nearest 
approach  to  an  absolute  'many'  that  we  can 
conceive.  We  can  not  even  imagine  any  reason 
why  they  should  be  know^n  all  together,  and 
we  can  imagine  even  less,  if  they  were  known 
together,  how  they  could  be  known  as  one 
systematic  whole. 

But  add  our  sensations  and  bodily  actions, 
and  the  union  mounts  to  a  much  higher  grade. 
Our  audita  et  visa  and  our  acts  fall  into  those 
receptacles  of  time  and  space  in  which  each  event 
finds  its  date  and  place.  They  form 'things' 
and  are  of  'kinds'  too, and  can  be  classed.  Yet 
we  can  imagine  a  world  of  things  and  of  kinds 
in  which  the  causal  interactions  with  which  we 
are  so  familiar  should  not  exist.  Everything 
there  might  be  inert  towards  everything  else, 
and  refuse  to  propagate  its  influence.  Or  gross 
mechanical  influences  might  pass,  but  no  chem- 
ical action.  Such  worlds  would  be  far  less  uni- 

157 


PRAGMATISM 

fied  than  ours.  Again  there  might  be  complete 
physico-chemical  interaction,  but  no  minds;  or 
minds,  but  altogether  private  ones,  with  no  so- 
cial life;  or  social  life  limited  to  acquaintance, 
but  no  love ;  or  love,  but  no  customs  or  institu- 
tions that  should  systematize  it.  No  one  of  these 
grades  of  universe  would  be  absolutely  irrational 
or  disintegrated,  inferior  tho  it  might  appear 
when  looked  at  from  the  higher  grades.  For 
instance,  if  our  minds  should  ever  become '  tele- 
pathically' connected,  so  that  we  knew  immedi- 
ately, or  could  under  certain  conditions  know 
immediately,  each  what  the  other  was  think- 
ing, the  world  we  now  live  in  would  appear  to 
the  thinkers  in  that  world  to  have  been  of  an 
inferior  grade. 

With  the  whole  of  past  eternity  open  for  our 
conjectures  to  range  in,  it  may  be  lawful  to 
wonder  whether  the  various  kinds  of  union  now 
realized  in  the  universe  that  we  inhabit  may 
not  possibly  have  been  successively  evolved 
after  the  fashion  in  which  we  now  see  human 
systems  evolving  in  consequence  of  human 
needs.   If  such  an  hypothesis  were  legitimate, 

158 


THE    ONE    AND    THE    MANY 

total  oneness  would  appear  at  the  end  of  things 
rather  than  at  their  origin.  In  other  words  the 
notion  of  the  *  Absolute'  would  have  to  be  re- 
placed by  that  of  the  *  Ultimate.'  The  two  no- 
tions would  have  the  same  content  —  the  maxi- 
mally unified  content  of  fact,  namely — but  their 
time- relations  would  be  positively  reversed.^ 
After  discussing  the  unity  of  the  universe  in 
this  pragmatic  way,  you  ought  to  see  w^hy  I 
said  in  my  second  lecture,  borrowing  the  word 
from  my  friend  G.  Papini,  that  pragmatism 
tends  to  unstifjen  all  our  theories.  The  world's 
oneness  has  generally  been  affirmed  abstractly 
only,  and  as  if  any  one  who  questioned  it  must 
be  an  idiot.  The  temper  of  monists  has  been  so 
vehement,  as  almost  at  times  to  be  convulsive; 
and  this  way  of  holding  a  doctrine  does  not 
easily  go  with  reasonable  discussion  and  the 
drawing  of  distinctions.  The  theory  of  the  Ab- 
solute, in  particular,  has  had  to  be  an  article  of 
faith,  affirmed  dogmatically  and  exclusively. 
The  One  and  All,  first  in  the  order  of  being  and 

^  Compare  on  the  Ultimate,  Mr.  Schiller's  essay  "Activity  and  Sub- 
stance," in  his  book  entitled  Humanism,  p.  204. 

159 


PRAGMATISM 

of  knowing,  logically  necessary  itself,  and  unit- 
ing all  lesser  things  in  the  bonds  of  mutual 
necessity,  how  could  it  allow  of  any  mitigation 
of  its  inner  rigidity?  The  slightest  suspicion  of 
pluralism,  the  minutest  wiggle  of  independ- 
ence of  any  one  of  its  parts  from  the  control 
of  the  totality  would  ruin  it.  Absolute  unity 
brooks  no  degrees,  —  as  well  might  you  claim 
absolute  purity  for  a  glass  of  water  because  it 
contains  but  a  single  little  cholera-germ.  The 
independence,  however  infinitesimal,  of  a  part, 
however  small,  would  be  to  the  Absolute  as 
fatal  as  a  cholera-germ. 

Pluralism  on  the  other  hand  has  no  need  of 
this  dogmatic  rigoristic  temper.  Provided  you 
grant  some  separation  among  things,  some  tre- 
mor of  independence,  some  free  play  of  parts 
on  one  another,  some  real  novelty  or  chance, 
however  minute,  she  is  amply  satisfied,  and  will 
allow  you  any  amount,  however  great,  of  real 
union.  How  much  of  union  there  may  be  is  a 
question  that  she  thinks  can  only  be  decided 
empirically.  The  amount  may  be  enormous, 
colossal;   but  absolute  monism  is  shattered  if, 

160 


THE    ONE    AND    THE    MANY 

along  with  all  the  union,  there  has  to  be  granted 
the  slightest  modicum,  the  most  incipient  nas- 
cency, or  the  most  residual  trace,  of  a  separa- 
tion that  is  not  *  overcome/  / 

Pragmatism,  pending  the  final  empirical 
ascertainment  of  just  what  the  balance  of  union 
and  disunion  among  things  may  be,  must  ob- 
viously range  herself  upon  the  pluralistic  side. 
Some  day,  she  admits,  even  total  union,  with 
one  knower,  one  origin,  and  a  universe  con- 
solidated in  every  conceivable  way,  may  turn 
out  to  be  the  most  acceptable  of  all  hypotheses. 
Meanwhile  the  opposite  hypothesis,  of  a  world 
imperfectly  unified  still,  and  perhaps  always 
to  remain  so,  must  be  sincerely  entertained. 
This  latter  hypothesis  is  pluralism's  doctrine. 
Since  absolute  monism  forbids  its  being  even 
considered  seriously,  branding  it  as  irrational 
from  the  start,  it  is  clear  that  pragmatism  must 
turn  its  back  on  absolute  monism,  and  follow 
pluralism's  more  empirical  path. 

This  leaves  us  with  the  common- sense 
world,  in  which  we  find  things  partly  joined 
and  partly  disjoined.  '  Things,'  then,  and  their 

161 


PRAGMATISM 


*  conjunctions' — what  do  such  words  mean, 
pragmatically  handled?  In  my  next  lecture, 
I  will  apply  the  pragmatic  method  to  the  stage 
of  philosophizing  known  as  Common  SensCo 


PRAGMATISM  AND   COMMON  SENSE 


LECTURE   V 

PRAGMATISM  AND    COMMON  SENSE 

In  the  last  lecture  we  turned  ourselves  from 
the  usual  way  of  talking  of  the  universe's  one- 
ness as  a  principle,  sublime  in  all  its  blankness, 
towards  a  study  of  the  special  kinds  of  union 
which  the  universe  enfolds.  We  found  many  of 
these  to  coexist  with  kinds  of  separation  equally 
real.  *How  far  am  I  verified.^'  is  the  question 
which  each  kind  of  union  and  each  kind  of 
separation  asks  us  here,  so  as  good  pragma- 
tists  we  have  to  turn  our  face  towards  experi- 
ence, towards  'facts.'  [A) 

Absolute  oneness  remains,  but  only  as  an*"7C^C/ /c 
hypothesis,  and  that  hypothesis  is  reduced  now-   Dfj    tA^ 
adays  to  that  of  an  omniscient  knower  who  ' 

sees  all  things  without  exception  as  forming  one 
single  systematic  fact.  But  the  knower  in  ques- 
tion may  still  be  conceived  either  as  an  Abso- 
lute or  as  an  Ultimate;  and  over  against  the 
hypothesis  of  him  in  either  form  the  counter- 
hypothesis  that  the  widest  field  of  knowledge 
that  ever  was  or  will  be  still  contains  some 

165 


/'V 


PRAGMATISM 

ignorance,  may  be  legitimately  held.  Some  bits 
of  information  always  may  escape. 

This  is  the  hypothesis  of  noetic  pluralisv^, 
which  monists  consider  so  absurd.  Since  we 
are  bound  to  treat  it  as  respectfully  as  noetic 
monism,  until  the  facts  shall  have  tipped  the 
beam,  we  find  that  our  pragmatism,  tho  orig- 
inally nothing  but  a  method,  has  forced  us 
to  be  friendly  to  the  pluralistic  view.  It  may 
be  that  some  parts  of  the  world  are  connected 
so  loosely  with  some  other  parts  as  to  be  strung 
along  by  nothing  but  the  copula  and.  They 
might  even  come  and  go  without  those  other 
parts  suffering  any  internal  change.  This 
pluralistic  view,  of  a  world  of  additive  consti- 
tution, is  one  that  pragmatism  is  unable  to 
rule  out  from  serious  consideration.  But  this 
view  leads  one  to  the  farther  hypothesis  that 
the  actual  world,  instead  of  being  complete 
'eternally,'  as  the  monists  assure  us,  may  be 
eternally  incomplete,  and  at  all  times  subject 
to  addition  or  liable  to  loss. 

It  is  at  any  rate  incomplete  in  one  respect, 
and  flagrantly  so.    The  very  fact  that  we  de- 

166 


COMMON    SENSE 

bate  this  question  shows  that  our  knowledge 
is  incomplete  at  present  and  subject  to  addi- 
tion. In  respect  of  the  knowledge  it  contains 
the  world  does  genuinely  change  and  grow. 
Some  general  remarks  on  the  way  in  which  our 
knowledge  completes  itself — when  it  does  com- 
plete itself — will  lead  us  very  conveniently  into 
our  subject  for  this  lecture,  which  is  '  Commoa  ^ 
Sense.'  C^/^ 

To  be^in  jvith,  our  knowledge  ^row^  m  ^>t^ — 
spots.  JThe  spots  may  be  large  or  small,  but     ^^^^-^^^^^^-^ 
the  knowledge  never  grows  all  over:  some  old     ^■^^^-^'i^iTxt  ^ 
knowledge  always  remains  what  it  was.   Your 
knowledge  of  pragmatism,  let  us  suppose,  is 
growing  now.    Later,  its  growth  may  involve 
considerable  modification  of  opinions  which 
you  previously  held  to  be  true.  But  such  modi- 
fications are  apt  to  be  gradual.    To  take  the 
nearest  possible  example,  consider  these  lec- 
tures of  mine.   \Miat  you  first  gain  from  them 
is  probably  a  small  amount  of  new  informa- 
tion, a  few  new  definitions,  or  distinctions,  or 
points  of  view.    But  while  these  special  ideas 
are  being  added,  the  rest  of  your  knowledge 

167 


PRAGMATISM 

stands  still,  and  only  gradually  will  you  'line 
up'  your  previous  opinions  with  the  novelties 
I  am  trying  to  instil,  and  modify  to  some  slight 
degree  their  mass. 

You  listen  to  me  now,  I  suppose,  with  cer- 
tain prepossessions  as  to  my  competency,  and 
these  affect  your  reception  of  what  I  say,  but 
were  I  suddenly  to  break  off  lecturing,  and 
to  begin  to  sing  '  We  won't  go  home  till  morn- 
ing' in  a  rich  baritone  voice,  not  only  would 
that  new  fact  be  added  to  your  stock,  but  it 
would  oblige  you  to  define  me  differently,  and 
that  might  alter  your  opinion  of  the  pragmatic 
philosophy,  and  in  general  bring  about  a  re- 
arrangement of  a  number  of  your  ideas.  Your 
mind  in  such  processes  is  strained,  and  some- 
times painfully  so,  between  its  older  beliefs 
and  the  novelties  which  experience  brings 
along. 

Our  minds  thus  grow  in  spots;  and  like 
,>^^  grease-spots,  the  spots  spread.  But  we  let 
them  spread  as  little  as  possible:  we  keep 
unaltered  as  much  of  our  old  knowledge, 
HM^'*^^^^     as  many  of  our  old  prejudices  and  beliefs,  as 

168 


COMMON    SENSE 

we  can.  We  patch  and  tinker  more  than  we 
renew.  The  novelty  soaks  in;  it  stains  the 
ancient  mass;  but  it  is  also  tinged  by  what 
absorbs  it.  Our  past  apperceives  and  co-oper- 
ates; and  in  the  new  equilibrium  in  which 
each  step  forward  in  the  process  of  learning 
terminates,  it  happens  relatively  seldom  that 
the  new  fact  is  added  raw.  More  usually  it  is 
embedded  cooked,  as  one  might  say,  or  stewed 
down  in  the  sauce  of  the  old. 

New  truths  thus  are  resultants  of  new 
experiences  and  of  old  truths  combined  and 
mutually  modifying  one  another.  And  since 
this  is  the  case  in  the  changes  of  opinion  of  to- 
day, there  is  no  reason  to  assume  that  it  has 
not  been  so  at  all  times.  It  follows  that  very 
ancient  modes  of  thought  may  have  survived 
through  all  the  later  changes  in  men's  opinions. 
The  most  primitive  ways  of  thinking  may  not 
yet  be  wholly  expunged.  Like  our  five  fingers, 
our  ear-bones,  our  rudimentary  caudal  append- 
age, or  our  other  'vestigial'  peculiarities,  they 
may  remain  as  indelible  tokens  of  events  in 
our  race-history.  Our  ancestors  may  at  certain 

169 


PRAGMATISM 


moments  have  struck  into  ways  of  thinking 
which  they  might  conceivably  not  have  found. 
But  once  they  did  so,  and  after  the  fact,  the 
inheritance  continues.  When  you  begin  a 
piece  of  music  in  a  certain  key,  you  must 
keep  the  key  to  the  end.  You  may  alter  your 
house  ad  libitum,  but  the  ground-plan  of  the 
first  architect  persists  —  you  can  make  great 
changes,  but  you  can  not  change  a  Gothic 
church  into  a  Doric  temple.  You  may  rinse 
and  rinse  the  bottle,  but  you  can't  get  the  taste 
of  the  medicine  or  whiskey  that  first  filled  it 
wholly  out. 

My  thesis  now  is  this,  that  our  fundamental 
^.^wa^of  thinking  about  things  are  discoveries 
of^^exceedingly  rewMe_a^  have 

been  able  to  "preserve  themselves^throughout  the 
experience  of  all  subsequent  tirrw*  They  form 
one  great  stage  of  equilibrium  in  the  human 
mind's  development,  the  stage  of  common 
sense.  Other  stages  have  grafted  themselves 
upon  this  stage,  but  have  never  succeeded  in 
displacing  it.  Let  us  consider  this  common- 
sense  stage  first,  as  if  it  might  be  final. 

170 


COMMON    SENSE 

In  practical  talk,  a  man's  common  sense 
means  his  good  judgment,  his  freedom  from 
excentricity,  his  gumption,  to  use  the  vernacu- 
lar word.  In  philosophy  it  means  something 
entirely  different,  it  means  his  use  of  certain 
intellectual  forms  or  categories  of  thought. 
Were  we  lobsters,  or  bees,  it  might  be  that  our 
organization  would  have  led  to  our  using  quite 
different  modes  from  these  of  apprehending 
our  experiences.  It  might  be  too  (we  can  not 
dogmatically  deny  this)  that  such  categories, 
unimaginable  by  us  to-day,  would  have  proved 
on  the  whole  as  serviceable  for  handling  our 
experiences  mentally  as  those  which  w^e  actu- 
ally use. 

If  this  sounds  paradoxical  to  any  one,  let 
him  think  of  analytical  geometry.  The  identi- 
cal figures  which  Euclid  defined  by  intrinsic 
relations  w^ere  defined  by  Descartes  by  the 
relations  of  their  points  to  adventitious  co-ordi- 
nates, the  result  being  an  absolutely  different 
and  vastly  more  potent  way  of  handling  curves. 
All  our  conceptions  are  what  the  Germans 

call  Denkmittelf  means  by  which  we  handle 

171 


PRAGMATISM 

facts  by  thinking  them.  Experience  merely  as 
such  doesn't  come  ticketed  and  labelled,  we 
have  first  to  discover  what  it  is.  Kant  speaks 
of  it  as  being  in  its  first  intention  a  gewilhl  der 
erscheinungen,  a  rhapsodic  der  wahrnehvi- 
ungen,a  mere  motley  which  we  have  to  unify  by 
our  wits.  What  we  usually  do  is  first  to  frame 
some  system  of  concepts  mentally  classified, 
serialized,  or  connected  in  some  intellectual 
way,  and  then  to  use  this  as  a  tally  by  which 
we  'keep  tab'  on  the  impressions  that  present 
themselves.  When  each  is  referred  to  some 
possible  place  in  the  conceptual  system,  it  is 
thereby  'understood.'  This  notion  of  parallel 
'  manifolds '  with  their  elements  standing  recip- 
rocally in  'one-to-one  relations,'  is  proving 
so  convenient  nowadays  in  mathematics  and 
logic  as  to  supersede  more  and  more  the  older 
classificatory  conceptions.  There  are  many 
conceptual  systems  of  this  sort;  and  the  sense 
manifold  is  also  such  a  system.  Find  a  one-to- 
one  relation  for  your  sense-impressions  any- 
where among  the  concepts,  and  in  so  far  forth 
you  rationalize  the  impressions.  But  obviously 

172 


COMMON    SENSE 
you  can  rationalize  them  by  using  various  con-        p.       j 

ceptual  systems.  {BJh-^       h- 

The  old  common-sense  way  of   rationaliz-    /^^^.(^u-^^f^^ 
ing  them  is  by  a  set  of  concepts  of  which  the     t£^6M-^ 
most  important  are  these:  C^7^X^/^  . 

Thing; 

The  same  or  different; 
Kinds ; 
Minds; 
Bodies; 
One  Time; 
One  Space; 

Subjects  and  attributes; 
Causal  influences; 
The  fancied; 
The  real. 

We  are  now  so  familiar  with  the  order  that 
these  notions  have  woven  for  us  out  of  the  ever- 
lasting weather  of  our  perceptions  that  we  find 
it  hard  to  realize  how  little  of  a  fixed  routine 
the  perceptions  follow  when  taken  by  them- 
selves. The  word  weather  is  a  good  one  to  use 
here.  In  Boston,  for  example,  the  weather  has 
almost  no  routine,  the  only  law  being  that  if 

173 


PRAGMATISM 


r  UA^' 


you  have  had  any  weather  for  two  days,  you 
will  probably  but  not  certainly  have  another 
weather  on  the  third.  Weather-experience  as 
it  thus  comes  to  Boston  is  discontinuous,  and 
chaotic.  In  point  of  temperature,  of  wind,  rain 
or  sunshine,  it  may  change  three  times  a  day. 
But  the  Washington  weather-bureau  intellect- 
ualizes  this  disorder  by  making  each  success- 
ive bit  of  Boston  weather  episodic.  It  refers  it 
to  its  place  and  moment  in  a  continental  cy- 
clone, on  the  history  of  which  the  local  changes 
everywhere  are  strung  as  beads  are  strung  upon 
a  cord. 

Now  it  seems  almost  certain  that  young  chil- 
dren and  the  inferior  animals  take  all  their 
experiences  very  much  as  uninstructedBoston- 
ians  take  their  weather.  They  know  no  more 
of  time,  or  space,  as  world-receptacles,  or  of 
permanent  subjects  and  changing  predicates, 
or  of  causes,  or  kinds,  or  thoughts,  or  things, 
than  our  common  people  know  of  continental 
cyclones.  A  baby's  rattle  drops  out  of  his  hand, 
but  the  baby  looks  not  for  it.  It  has  *gone  out' 
for  him,  as  a  candle-flame  goes  out;    and  it 

174 


COMMON    SENSE 

comes  back,  when  you  replace  it  in  his  hand, 
as  the  flame  comes  back  when  relit.   The  idea 
of  its  being  a  'thing,'  whose  permanent  exist- 
ence by  itself  he  might  interpolate  between  its 
successive  apparitions  has  evidently  not  oc- 
curred to  him.   It  is  the  same  with  dogs.   Out 
of  sight,  out  of  mind,  with  them.    It  is  pretty 
evident  that  they  have  no  general  tendency  to 
interpolate  *  things.'    Let  me  quote  here  a  pas- 
sage from  my  colleague  G.  Santayana's  book. 
"If  a  dog,  while  sniffing  about  contentedly, 
sees  his  master  arriving  after  a  long  absence 
.  .  .  the  poor  brute  asks  for  no  reason  why 
his  master  went,  why  he  has  come  again,  why 
he  should  be  loved,  or  why  presently  while 
lying  at  his  feet  you  forget  him  and  begin  to 
grunt  and  dream  of  the  chase  —  all  that  is  an 
utter  mystery,  utterly  unconsidered.   Such  ex- 
perience has  variety,  scenery,  and  a  certain 
vital  rhythm ;  its  story  might  be  told  in  dithy- 
rambic  verse.  It  moves  wholly  by  inspiration; 
every  event  is  providential,  every  act  unpre- 
meditated .  Absolute  freedom  and  absolute  help- 
lessness have  met  together:  you  depend  wholly 

175 


PRAGMATISM 

on  divine  favor,  yet  that  unfathomable  agency 
is  not  distinguishable  from  your  own  life. 
.  .  .  [But]  the  figures  even  of  that  disordered 
drama  have  their  exits  and  their  entrances; 
and  their  cues  can  be  gradually  discovered 
by  a  being  capable  of  fixing  his  attention 
and  retaining  the  order  of  events.  ...  In 
proportion  as  such  understanding  advances, 
each  moment  of  experience  becomes  conse- 
quential and  prophetic  of  the  rest.  The  calm 
places  in  life  are  filled  with  power  and  its 
spasms  with  resource.  No  emotion  can  over- 
whelm the  mind,  for  of  none  is  the  basis  or 
issue  wholly  hidden ;  no  event  can  disconcert  it 
altogether,  because  it  sees  beyond.  Means  can 
be  looked  for  to  escape  from  the  worst  predica- 
ment; and  whereas  each  moment  had  been 
formerly  filled  with  nothing  but  its  own  adven- 
tures and  surprised  emotion,  each  now  makes 
room  for  the  lesson  of  what  went  before  and 
surmises  what  may  be  the  plot  of  the  whole."  ^ 
Even  to-day  science  and  philosophy  are  still 
laboriously  trying  to  part  fancies  from  realities 

*  The  Life  of  Reason :  Reason  in  Common  Sense,  1905,  p.  59. 

176 


COMMON    SENSE 

in  our  experience;  and  in  primitive  times  they 
made  only  the  most  incipient  distinctions  in 
this  line.  Men  believed  whatever  they  thought 
with  any  liveliness,  and  they  mixed  their  dreams 
with  their  realities  inextricably.  The  categories 
of  *  thought '  and '  things '  are  indispensable  here 
—  instead  of  being  realities  wx  now  call  certain 
experiences  only 'thoughts.'  There  is  not  a  cate- 
gory, among  those  enumerated,  of  which  we 
may  not  imagine  the  use  to  have  thus  origi- 
nated historically  and  only  gradually  spread.  rf\  <^» 
/That  one  Time  which  we  all  believe  in  and  ' .  -^  " 
in  w^hich  each  event  has  its  definite  date,  that 
one  Space  in  which  each  thing  has  its  position, 
these  abstract  notions  unify  the  world  incom- 
parably; but  in  their  finished  shape  as  con- 
cepts how  different  they  are  from  the  loose  un- 
ordered time-and-space  experiences  of  natural 
men !  Everything  that  happens  to  us  brings  its 
own  duration  and  extension,  and  both  are 
vaguely  surrounded  by  a  marginal  'more'  that 
runs  into  the  duration  and  extension  of  the 
next  thing  that  comes.  But  w^e  soon  lose  all 
our  definite  bearings;   and  not  only  do  our 

177 


PRAGMATISM 

children  make  no  distinction  between  yesterday 
and  the  day  before  yesterday,  the  whole  past 
being  churned  up  together,  but  we  adults  still 
do  so  whenever  the  times  are  large.  It  is  the 
same  with  spaces.  On  a  map  I  can  distinctly 
see  the  relation  of  London,  Constantinople, 
and  Pekin  to  the  place  where  I  am;  in  reality 
/  I  utterly  fail  to  feel  the  facts  which  the  map 
symbolizes.  The  directions  and  distances  are 
vague,  confused  and  mixed.  Cosmic  space  and 
cosmic  time,  so  far  from  being  the  intuitions 
that  Kant  said  they  were,  are  constructions  as 
patently  artificial  as  any  that  science  can  show. 
The  great  majority  of  the  human  race  never 
use  these  notions,  but  live  in  plural  times  and 
spaces,  interpenetrant  and  durcheinander,/ 

Permanent  'things'  again;  the  *same'  thing 
and  its  various*  appearances'  and  *  alterations'; 
the  different  *  kinds'  of  thing;  w^ith  the  'kind' 
used  finally  as  a  '  predicate,'  of  which  the  thing 
remains  the  'subject'  — w^hat  a  straightening 
of  the  tangle  of  our  experience's  immediate 
flux  and  sensible  variety  does  this  list  of  terms 
suggest!  And  it  is  only  the  smallest  part  of  his 

178 


COMMON    SENSE 

experience's  flux  that  any  one  actually  does 
straighten  out  by  applying  to  it  these  con- 
ceptual instruments.  Outof  them  all  our  lowest 
ancestors  probably  used  only,  and  then  most 
vaguely  and  inaccurately,  the  notion  of  *the 
same  again.'  But  even  then  if  you  had  asked 
them  whether  the  same  were  a  'thing'  that 
had  endured  throughout  the  unseen  interval, 
they  w^ould  probably  have  been  at  a  loss,  and 
would  have  said  that  they  had  never  asked  that 
question,  or  considered  matters  in  that  light,  'uj 

Kinds,  and  sameness  of  kind  —  what  colos-    '*       , 
sally  useful  denkmittel  for  finding  our   w^ay  ' 

among  the  many!  The  manyness  might  con- 
ceivably have  been  absolute.  Experiences 
might  have  all  been  singulars,  no  one  of  them 
occurring  twice.  In  such  a  w^orld  logic  would 
have  had  no  application;  for  kind  and  same- 
ness of  kind  are  logic's  only  instruments.  Once 
w^e  know  that  whatever  is  of  a  kind  is  also  of 
that  kind's  kind,  we  can  travel  through  the 
universe  as  if  with  seven-league  boots.  Brutes 
surely  never  use  these  abstractions,  and  civil- 
ized men  use  them  in  most  various  amounts. 

179 


OJ^ 


{jpjJ^  PRAGMATISM 

s(A^  Causal  influence,  again!  This,  if  anything, 
seems  to  have  been  an  antediluvian  concep- 
tion; for  we  find  primitive  men  thinking  that 
almost  everything  is  significant  and  can  exert 
influence  of  some  sort.  The  search  for  the  more 
definite  influences  seems  to  have  started  in  the 
question:  '*Who,  or  what,  is  to  blame?"  — 
for  any  illness,  namely,  or  disaster,  or  untoward 
thing.  From  this  centre  the  search  for  causal 
influences  has  spread.  Hume  and  *  Science'  to- 
gether have  tried  to  eliminate  the  whole  notion 
of  influence,  substituting  the  entirely  different 
denkmittel  of  'law.'  But  law  is  a  comparatively 
recent  invention,  and  influence  reigns  supreme 
in  the  older  realm  of  common  sense. 

The  'possible,'  as  something  less  than  the 


k^ 


rt    actual  and  more  than  the  wholly  unreal,  is 
f        another  of  these  magisterial  notions  of  com- 
^    mon  sense.    Criticise  them  as  you  may,  they 
persist;   and  we  fly  back  to  them  the  moment 
'}^  critical  pressure  is  relaxed.    'Self,'  'body,'  in 
L       the  substantial  or  metaphysical  sense  —  no  one 
ijjV|  iU»    escapes  subjection  to  those  forms  of  thought. 
In  practice,  the  common-sense  denkmittel  are 

180 


COMMON    SENSE 

uniformly  victorious.  Every  one,  however  in- 
structed, still  thinks  of  a  *  thing'  in  the  com- 
mon-sense way,  as  a  permanent  unit-subject 
that  *  supports'  its  attributes  interchangeably. 
No  one  stably  or  sincerely  uses  the  more  crit- 
ical notion,  of  a  group  of  sense-qualities  united 
by  a  law.  With  these  categories  in  our  hand, 
we  make  our  plans  and  plot  together,  and 
connect  all  the  remoter  parts  of  experience 
with  what  lies  before  our  eyes.  Our  later  and 
more  critical  philosophies  are  mere  fads  and 
fancies  compared  with  this  natural  mother- 
tongue  of  thought. 

Common  sense  appears  thus  as  a  perfectly 
definite  stage  in  our  understanding  of  things, 
a  stage  that  satisfies  in  an  extraordinarily 
successful  way  the  purposes  for  which  we 
think.  'Things'  do  exist,  even  when  we  do 
not  see  them.  Their  'kinds'  also  exist.  Their 
'qualities'  are  what  they  act  by,  and  are  what 
we  act  on;  and  these  also  exist.  These  lamps 
shed  their  quality  of  light  on  every  object  in 
this  room.  We  intercept  it  on  its  way  when- 
ever we  hold  up  an  opaque  screen.    It  is  the 

181 


PRAGMATISM 

very  sound  that  my  lips  emit  that  travels  into 
your  ears.  It  is  the  sensible  heat  of  the  fire 
that  migrates  into  the  water  in  which  we  boil 
an  egg;  and  we  can  change  the  heat  into  cool- 
ness by  dropping  in  a  lump  of  ice.  At  this 
stage  of  philosophy  all  non-European  men 
without  exception  have  remained.  It  suffices 
for  all  the  necessary  practical  ends  of  life; 
and,  among  our  race  even,  it  is  only  the  highly 
sophisticated  specimens,  the  minds  debauched 
by  learning,  as  Berkeley  calls  them,  who  have 
ever  even  suspected  common  sense  of  not 
being  absolutely  true. 

But  when  we  look  back,  and  speculate  as  to 
how  the  common-sense  categories  may  have 
achieved  their  wonderful  supremacy,  no  reason 
appears  why  it  may  not  have  been  by  a  pro- 
cess just  like  that  by  which  the  conceptions  due 
to  Democritus,  Berkeley,  or  Darwin,  achieved 
their  similar  triumphs  in  more  recent  times. 
In  other  words,  they  may  have  been  success- 
fully discovered  by  prehistoric  geniuses  whose 
names  the  night  of  antiquity  has  covered  up; 
they  may  have  been  verified  by  the  immediate 

182 


COMMON    SENSE 

facts  of  experience  which  they  first  fitted; 
and  then  from  fact  to  fact  and  from  man  to 
man  they  may  have  spread,  until  all  language 
rested  on  them  and  we  are  now  incapable  of 
thinking  naturally  in  any  other  terms.  Such 
a  view  would  only  follow  the  rule  that  has 
proved  elsewhere  so  fertile,  of  assuming  the 
vast  and  remote  to  conform  to  the  laws  of 
formation  that  we  can  observe  at  work  in  the 
small  and  near. 

For  all  utilitarian  practical  purposes  these 
conceptions  amply  suffice;  but  that  they  began 
at  special  points  of  discovery  and  only  gradu- 
ally spread  from  one  thing  to  another,  seems 
proved  by  the  exceedingly  dubious  limits  of  their 
application  to-day.  We  assume  for  certain 
purposes  one 'objective'  Time  that  aequabili- 
ter  fluit,  but  we  don't  livingly  believe  in  or 
realize  any  such  equally-flowing  time.  '  Space' 
is  a  less  vague  notion;  but  *  things,'  what  are 
they.?  Is  a  constellation  properly  a  thing?  or 
an  army  ?  or  is  an  ens  rationis  such  as  space  or 
justice  a  thing.?  Is  a  knife  whose  handle  and 
blade  are  changed  the  *  same '  ?  Is  the  '  change- 

183 


PRAGMATISM 

ling,'  whom  Locke  so  seriously  discusses,  of 
the  human  '  kind  '  ?  Is  *  telepathy '  a  '  fancy '  or 
a  'fact'?  The  moment  you  pass  beyond  the 
practical  use  of  these  categories  (a  use  usually 
suggested  sufficiently  by  the  circumstances  of 
the  special  case)  to  a  merely  curious  or  specu- 
lative way  of  thinking,  you  find  it  impossible 
to  say  within  just  what  limits  of  fact  any  one 
of  them  shall  apply. 

The  peripatetic  philosophy,  obeying  ration- 
alist propensities,  has  tried  to  eternalize  the 
common-sense  categories  by  treating  them  very 
technically  and  articulately.  A  'thing'  for  in- 
stance is  a  being,  or  ens.  An  ens  is  a  subject 
in  which  qualities  'inhere.'  A  subject  is  a  sub- 
stance. Substances  are  of  kinds,  and  kinds 
are  definite  in  number,  and  discrete.  These 
distinctions  are  fundamental  and  eternal. 
As  terms  of  discourse  they  are  indeed  magni- 
ficently useful,  but  what  they  mean,  apart  from 
their  use  in  steering  our  discourse  to  profitable 
issues,  does  not  appear.  If  you  ask  a  scholastic 
philosopher  what  a  substance  may  be  in  itself, 
apart  from  its  being  the  support  of  attributes, 

184 


COMMON    SENSE 

he  simply  says  that  your  intellect  knows  per- 
fectly what  the  word  means.  (^vlA 


But  what  the  intellect  knows  clearly  is  onlyi^^  ^^         ^^ 


the  w^ord  itself  and  its  steering  function.   So  it    ^, 
comes  about  that  intellects  sihi  permissi,  intel-  /^^ ' 

lects  only  curious  and  idle,  have  forsaken  the  (^^^^(Ut/jfjj/i 
common-sense  level  for  what  in  general  terms  iOrMjuhii^ 
may  be  called  the  *  critical'  level  of  thought,  tirytthdj^ 
Not  merely  5iic/t  intellects  either — your  Humes  ^XinitA^ 
and  Berkeleys  and  Hegels;    but  practical  ob-  (Uryi^^^fU^ 
servers  of  facts,  your  Galileos,  Daltons,  Fara-  ^t^Mjcj^,  ^ 
days,  have  found  it  impossible  to  treat  the 
naifs  sense-termini  of  common  sense  as  ulti- 
mately real.    As  common  sense  interpolates 
her  constant  'things'  between  our  intermittent 
sensations,  so  science  exfrapolates  her  world 
of  *  primary'  qualities,  her  atoms,  her  ether, 
her  magnetic  fields,  and  the  like,  beyond  the 
common-sense  world.    The  *  things'  are  now 
invisible  impalpable  things ;  and  the  old  visible 
common-sense  things  are  supposed  to  result 
from  the  mixture  of  these  invisibles.    Or  else 
the  whole  naif  conception  of  thing  gets  super- 
seded, and  a  thing's  name  is  interpreted  as 

185 


PRAGMATISM 

denoting  only  the  law  or  regel  der  verbindung 
by  which  certain  of  our  sensations  habitually 
succeed  or  coexist. 

Science  and  critical  philosophy  thus  burst 
the  bounds  of  common  sense.  With  science 
naif  realism  ceases:  'Secondary'  qualities  be- 
come unreal;  primary  ones  alone  remain. 
With  critical  philosophy,  havoc  is  made  of 
everything.  The  common-sense  categories  one 
and  all  cease  to  represent  anything  in  the  way 
of  being;  they  are  but  sublime  tricks  of  human 
thought,  our  ways  of  escaping  bewilderment 
in  the  midst  of  sensation's  irremediable  flow. 

But  the  scientific  tendency  in  critical  thought, 
tho  inspired  at  first  by  purely  intellectual  mo- 
tives, has  opened  an  entirely  unexpected  range 
of  practical  utilities  to  our  astonished  view. 
Galileo  gave  us  accurate  clocks  and  accurate 
artillery-practice;  the  chemists  flood  us  with 
new  medicines  and  dye-stuffs;  Ampere  and 
Faraday  have  endowed  us  with  the  New  York 
subway  and  with  Marconi  telegrams.  The 
hypothetical  things  that  such  men  have  in- 
vented, defined  as  they  have  defined  them,  are 

186 


COMMON    SENSE 

showing  an  extraordinary  fertility  in  conse- 
quences  verifiable  by  sense.  Our  logic  can  de- 
duce   from    them  a  consequence    due  under 
certain  conditions,  we  can  then  bring  about 
the  conditions,  and  presto,  the  consequence  is 
there  before  our  eyes.   The  scope  of  the  prac- 
tical control  of  nature  newly  put  into  our  hand 
by  scientific  ways  of  thinking  vastly  exceeds  the 
scope  of  the  old  control  grounded  on  common 
sense.    Its  rate  of  increase  accelerates  so  that 
no  one  can  trace  the  limit;  one  may  even  fear 
that  the  being  of  man  may  be  crushed  by  his 
own  powers,  that  his  fixed  nature  as  an  organ- 
ism may  not  prove  adequate  to  stand  the  strain 
of  the  ever  increasingly  tremendous  functions, 
almost   divine   creative  functions,   which  his 
intellect  will  more  and  more  enable  him  to 
wield.  He  may  drown  in  his  wealth  like  a  child 
in  a  bath-tub,  who  has  turned  on  the  water  and 
who  can  not  turn  it  off. 

The  philosophic  stage  of  criticism,  much  more 
thorough  in  its  negations  than  the  scientific 
stage,  so  far  gives  us  no  new  range  of  practical 
power.  Locke,  Hume,  Berkeley,  Kant,  Hegel, 

187 


PRAGMATISM 

have  all  been  utterly  sterile,  so  far  as  shedding 
any  light  on  the  details  of  nature  goes,  and  I 
can  think  of  no  invention  or  discovery  that 
can  be  directly  traced  to  anything  in  their  pe- 
culiar thought,  for  neither  with  Berkeley's  tar- 
water  nor  w^ith  Kant's  nebular  hypothesis  had 
their  respective  philosophic  tenets  anything 
to  do.  The  satisfactions  they  yield  to  their 
^  disciples  are  intellectual,  not  practical;  and 
even  then  we  have  to  confess  that  there  is 
a  large  minus-side  to  the  account. 

There  are  thus  at  least  three  well-character- 
ized levels,  stages  or  types  of  thought  about  the 
world  we  live  in,  and  the  notions  of  one  stage 
have  one  kind  of  merit,  those  of  another  stage 
another  kind.  It  is  impossible,  however,  to 
say  that  any  stage  as  yet  in  sight  is  absolutely 
more  true  than  any  other.  Common  sense  is 
the  more  consolidated  stage,  because  it  got  its 
innings  first,  and  made  all  language  into  its 
ally.  Whether  it  or  science  be  the  more  august 
stage  may  be  left  to  private  judgment.  But 
neither  consolidation  nor  augustness  are  de- 
cisive marks  of  truth.    If  common  sense  were 

188 


COMMON    SENSE 

true,  why  should  science  have  had  to  brand 
the  secondary  qualities,  to  which  our  world 
owes  all  its  living  interest,  as  false,  and  to  in- 
vent an  invisible  world  of  points  and  curves, 
and  mathematical  equations  instead?  Why 
should  it  have  needed  to  transform  causes  and 
activities  into  laws  of  'functional  variation'? 
Vainly  did  scholasticism,  common  sense's 
college-trained  younger  sister,  seek  to  stereo- 
type the  forms  the  human  family  had  always 
talked  with,  to  make  them  definite  and  fix 
them  for  eternity.  Substantial  forms  (in  other 
w^ords  our  secondary  qualities)  hardly  out- 
lasted the  year  of  our  Lord  1600.  People  w^ere 
already  tired  of  them  then;  and  Galileo,  and 
Descartes,  with  his  'new  philosophy,'  gave 
them  only  a  little  later  their  coup  de  grace. 

But  now  if  the  new  kinds  of  scientific '  thing,' 
the  corpuscular  and  etheric  world,  were  es- 
sentially more  'true,'  why  should  they  have 
excited  so  much  criticism  within  the  body  of 
science  itself?  Scientific  logicians  are  saying 
on  every  hand  that  these  entities  and  their 
determinations,  however  definitely  conceived, 

189 


PRAGMATISM 

should  not  be  held  for  literally  real.  It  is  as  if 
they  existed ;  but  in  reality  they  are  like  co-or- 
dinates or  logarithms,  only  artificial  short-cuts 
for  taking  us  from  one  part  to  another  of  ex- 
perience's flux.  We  can  cipher  fruitfully  with 
them;  they  serve  us  wonderfully;  but  we  must 
not  be  their  dupes. 

There  is  no  ringing  conclusion  possible  when 
we  compare  these  types  of  thinking,  with  a 
view  to  telling  which  is  the  more  absolutely 
true.  Their  naturalness,  their  intellectual  eco- 
nomy, their  fruitfulness  for  practice,  all  start  up 
as  distinct  tests  of  their  veracity,  and  as  a  result 
we  get  confused.  Common  sense  is  bettei'  for 
one  sphere  of  life,  science  for  another,  philo- 
l  sophic  criticism  for  a  third ;  but  whether  either 
be  truer  absolutely.  Heaven  only  knows.  Just 
now,  if  I  understand  the  matter  rightly,  we  are 
witnessing  a  curious  reversion  to  the  common 
sense  way  of  looking  at  physical  nature,  in  the 
philosophy  of  science  favored  by  such  men  as 
Mach,  Ostwald  and  Duhem.  According  to 
these  teachers  no  hypothesis  is  truer  than  any 
other  in  the  sense  of  being  a  more  literal  copy 

190 


COMMON    SENSE 

of  reality.  They  are  all  but  ways  of  talking  on 
our  part,  to  be  compared  solely  from  the  point 
of  view  of  their  use.  The  only  literally  true 
thing  is  reality  ;  and  the  only  reality  we  know 
is,  for  these  logicians,  sensible  reality,  the  flux 
of  our  sensations  and  emotions  as  they  pass. 
*  Energy'  is  the  collective  name  (according  to 
Ostwald)  for  the  sensations  just  as  they  pre- 
sent themselves  (the  movement,  heat,  mag- 
netic pull,  or  light,  or  whatever  it  may  be) 
when  they  are  measured  in  certain  ways.  So 
measuring  them,  we  are  enabled  to  describe 
the  correlated  changes  which  they  show  us,  in 
formulas  matchless  for  their  simplicity  and 
fruitfulness  for  human  use.  They  are  sove- 
reign triumphs  of  economy  in  thought. 

No  one  can  fail  to  admire  the  *  energetic' 
philosophy.  But  the  hypersensible  entities, 
the  corpuscles  and  vibrations,  hold  their  own 
with  most  physicists  and  chemists,  in  spite  of 
its  appeal.  It  seems  too  economical  to  be  all- 
sufficient.  Profusion,  not  economy,  may  after 
all  be  reality's  key-note. 

I  am   dealing  here  with  highly  technical 

191 


PRAGMATISM 

matters,  hardly  suitable  for  popular  lecturing; 
and  in  which  my  own  competence  is  small. 
All  the  better  for  my  conclusion,  however, 
which  at  this  point  is  this.  The  whole  notion 
of  truth,  which  naturally  and  without  reflex- 
ion we  assume  to  mean  the  simple  duplication 
by  the  mind  of  a  ready-made  and  given  reality, 
proves  hard  to  understand  clearly.  There  is 
no  simple  test  available  for  adjudicating  off- 
hand between  the  divers  types  of  thought  that 
claim  to  possess  it.  Common  sense,  common 
science  or  corpuscular  philosophy,  ultra-critical 
science,  or  energetics,  and  critical  or  idealistic 
philosophy,  all  seem  insuflSciently  true  in  some 
regard  and  leave  some  dissatisfaction.  It  is 
evident  that  the  conflict  of  these  so  widely 
differing  systems  obliges  us  to  overhaul  the 
very  idea  of  truth,  for  at  present  we  have  no 
definite  notion  of  what  the  word  may  mean. 
I  shall  face  that  task  in  my  next  lecture,  and 
will  add  but  a  few  words,  in  finishing  the 
present  one. 


f  \jjjJ\JJ^     There  are  only  two  points  that  I  wish  you  to 


aJ  ^'       retain  from  the  present  lecture.   The  first  one 


COMMON    SENSE 

relates  to  common  sense.  We  have  seen  reason 
to  suspect  it,  to  suspect  that  in  spite  of  their 
being  so  venerable,  of  their  being  so  univer- 
sally used  and  built  into  the  very  structure  of 
language,  its  categories  may  after  all  be  only 
a  collection  of  extraordinarily  successful  hypo- 
theses (historically  discovered  or  invented  by 
single  men,  but  gradually  communicated,  and 
used  by  everybody)  by  which  our  forefathers 
have  from  time  immemorial  unified  and 
straightened  the  discontinuity  of  their  imme- 
diate experiences,  and  put  themselves  into  an 
equilibrium  with  the  surface  of  nature  so  satis- 
factory for  ordinary  practical  purposes  that  it 
certainly  would  have  lasted  forever,  but  for 
the  excessive  intellectual  vivacity  of  Democri- 
tus,  Archimedes,  Galileo,  Berkeley,  and  of 
other  excentric  geniuses  whom  the  example  of 
such  men  inflamed.  Retain,  I  pray  you,  this 
suspicion  about  common  sense. 

The  other  point  is  this.  Ought  not  the  exist- 
ence of  the  various  types  of  thinking  which  we 
have  reviewed,  each  so  splendid  for  certain 
purposes,  yet  all  conflicting  still,  and  neither 

193 


PRAGMATISM 

one  of  them  able  to  support  a  claim  of  abso- 
lute veracity,  to  awaken  a  presumption  favor- 
able to  the  pragmatistic  view  that  all  our  theo- 
ries are  instrumental,  are  mental  modes  of 
adaptation  to  reality,  rather  than  revelations 
or  gnostic  answers  to  some  divinely  instituted 
world-enigma  ?  I  expressed  this  view  as  clearly 
as  I  could  in  the  second  of  these  lectures.  Cer- 
tainly the  restlessness  of  the  actual  theoretic 
situation,  the  value  for  some  purposes  of  each 
thought-level,  and  the  inability  of  either  to 
expel  the  others  decisively,  suggest  this  prag- 
matistic view,  which  I  hope  that  the  next  lec- 
tures may  soon  make  entirely  convincing.  May 
there  not  after  all  be  a  possible  ambiguity  in 
truth? 


VI 


PRAGMATISM'S    CONCEPTION  OF 
TRUTH 


LECTURE    VI 

PRAGMATISM'S    CONCEPTION    OF 
TRUTH 

When  Clerk-Maxwell  was  a  child  it  is  writ- 
ten that  he  had  a  mania  for  having  everything 
explained  to  him,  and  that  when  people  put 
him  off  with  vague  verbal  accounts  of  any  phe- 
nomenon he  would  interrupt  them  impatiently 
by  saying,  'Yes;  but  I  want  you  to  tell  me  the 
particular  go  of  it!'  Had  his  question  been 
about  truth,  only  a  pragmatist  could  have  told 
him  the  particular  go  of  it.  I  believe  that  our 
contemporary  pragmatists,  especially  Messrs. 
Schiller  and  Dewey,  have  given  the  only  ten- 
able account  of  this  subject.  It  is  a  very  tick- 
lish subject,  sending  subtle  rootlets  into  all 
kinds  of  crannies,  and  hard  to  treat  in  the 
sketchy  way  that  alone  befits  a  public  lecture. 
But  the  Schiller-Dewey  view  of  truth  has  been 
so  ferociously  attacked  by  rationalistic  phil- 
osophers, and  so  abominably  misunderstood, 
that  here,  if  anywhere,  is  the  point  where  a 
clear  and  simple  statement  should  be  made. 

197 


PRAGMATISM 

I  fully  expect  to  see  the  pragmatist  view  of 
truth  run  through  the  classic  stages  of  a  theory's 
career.  First,  you  know,  a  new  theory  is  at- 
tacked as  absurd;  then  it  is  admitted  to  be 
true,  but  obvious  and  insignificant;  finally  it 
is  seen  to  be  so  important  that  its  adversaries 
claim  that  they  themselves  discovered  it.  Our 
doctrine  of  truth  is  at  present  in  the  first  of  these 
three  stages,  with  symptoms  of  the  second  stage 
having  begun  in  certain  quarters.  I  wish  that 
this  lecture  might  help  it  beyond  the  first  stage 
in  the  eyes  of  many  of  you. 
j  Truth,  as  any  dictionary  will  tell  you,  is  a 
f  property  of  certain  of  our  ideas.  It  means  their 
'agreement,'  as  falsity  means  their  disagree- 
ment, with  '  reality.'  Pragmatists  and  intellect- 
ualists  both  accept  this  definition  as  a  matter 
of  course.  They  begin  to  quarrel  only  after  the 
question  is  raised  as  to  what  may  precisely  be 
meant  by  the  term  'agreement,'  and  what  by 
the  term  'reality,'  when  reality  is  taken  as 
something  for  our  ideas  to  agree  with. 

In  answering  these  questions  the  pragma- 
tists are  more  analytic  and  painstaking,  the 

19ci 


THE    NOTION    OF    TRUTH 

intellectualists  more  offhand  and  irreflcctive. 
The  popular  notion  is  that  a  true  idea  must 
copy  its  reality.  Like  other  popular  views,  this 
one  follows  the  analogy  of  the  most  usual  ex- 
perience. Our  true  ideas  of  sensible  things  do 
indeed  copy  them.  Shut  your  eyes  and  think 
of  yonder  clock  on  the  -vvall,  and  you  get  just 
such  a  true  picture  or  copy  of  its  dial.  But 
your  idea  of  its  '  works '  (unless  you  are  a  clock- 
maker)  is  much  less  of  a  copy,  yet  it  passes 
muster,  for  it  in  no  way  clashes  with  the  real- 
ity. Even  though  it  should  shrink  to  the  mere 
w^ord  ^ works,'  that  word  still  serves  you  truly; 
and  when  you  speak  of  the  *  time-keeping 
function'  of  the  clock,  or  of  its  spring's  'elas- 
ticity,' it  is  hard  to  see  exactly  what  your  ideas 
can  copy. 

You  perceive  that  there  is  a  problem  here. 
Where  our  ideas  cannot  copy  definitely  their 
object,  what  does  agreement  with  that  object 
mean?  Some  idealists  seem  to  say  that  they 
are  true  whenever  they  are  what  God  means 
that  we  ought  to  think  about  that  object. 
Others  hold  the  copy-view  all  through,  and 

idd 


PRAGMATISM 

speak  as  if  our  ideas  possessed  truth  just  in 
proportion  as  they  approach  to  being  copies 
of  the  Absolute's  eternal  way  of  thinking. 

These  views,  you  see,  invite  pragmatistic 
discussion.  But  the  great  assumption  of  the 
intellectualists  is  that  truth  means  essentially 
an  inert  static  relation.  When  you've  got  your 
true  idea  of  anything,  there's  an  end  of  the 
matter.  You're  in  possession;  you  know;  you 
have  fulfilled  your  thinking  destiny.  You  are 
where  you  ought  to  be  mentally;  you  have 
obeyed  your  categorical  imperative;  and  no- 
thing more  need  follow  on  that  climax  of  your 
rational  destiny ;'  Epistemologically  you  are  in 
stable  equilibrium. 

Pragmatism,  on   the  other   hand,  asks  its 

usual  question.  **  Grant  an  idea  or  belief  to  be 

j  true,"  it  says,  '*what  concrete  difference  will 

;  h  its  being  true  make  in  any  one's  actual  life.^ 

f  f    How  will  the  truth  be  realized?   What  experi- 

ences  will  be  different  from  those  which  would 

obtain  if  the  belief  were  false?   What,  in  short, 

.     is  the  truth's  cash- value  in  experiential  terms  ? ' ' 

/  The  moment  pragmatism  asks  this  question, 

i      '  200 


THE    NOTION    OF    TRUTH 

it  sees  the  answer:  True  ideas  are  those  that  we 
can  assimilate,  validate,  corroborate  and  verify. 
False  ideas  are  those  that  we  can  not.  That  is 
the  practical  difference  it  makes  to  us  to  have 
true  ideas;  that,  therefore,  is  the  meaning  of 
truth,  for  it  is  all  that  truth  is  known-as. 

This  thesis  is  what  I  have  to  defend.  The 
truth  of  an  idea  is  not  a  stagnant  property 
inherent  in  it.  Truth  happens  to  an  idea^  It 
becomes  true,  is  made  true  by  events.  Its  veri 
is  in  fact  an  event,  a  process:  the  process 
namely  of  its  verifying  itself,  its  yeri-fication. 
Its  validity  is  the  process  of  its  yalid-ation,  ■ 

But  what  do  the  words  verification  and  valid- 
ation themselves  pragmatically  mean.^  They 
again  signify  certain  practical  consequences 
of  the  verified  and  validated  idea.  It  is  hard 
to  find  any  one  phrase  that  characterizes 
these  consequences  better  than  the  ordinary 
agreement-formula  —  just  such  consequences 
being  what  we  have  in  mind  whenever  we 
say  that  our  ideas  'agree'  with  reality.  They 
lead  us,  namely,  through  the  acts  and  other 
ideas  which    they  instigate,  into    or   up  to, 

201 


PRAGMATISM 

or  towards,  other  parts  of  experience  with 
which  we  feel  all  the  while  —  such  feeling  be- 
ing among  our  potentialities — that  the  original 
ideas  remain  in  agreement.  The  connexions 
and  transitions  come  to  us  from  point  to  point 
as  being  progressive,  harmonious,  satisfactory. 
This  function  of  agreeable  leading  is  what 
we  mean  by  an  idea's  verification.  Such  an 
account  is  vague  and  it  sounds  at  first  quite 
trivial,  but  it  has  results  which  it  will  take  the 
rest  of  my  hour  to  explain. 

Let  me  begin  by  reminding  you  of  the  fact 
that  the  possession  of  true  thoughts  means 
everywhere  the  possession  of  invaluable  instru- 
ments of  action;  and  that  our  duty  to  gain 
truth,  so  far  from  being  a  blank  command  from 
out  of  the  blue,  or  a  *  stunt'  self-imposed  by 
our  intellect,  can  account  for  itself  by  excellent 
practical  reasons. 

The  importance  to  human  life  of  having  true 
beliefs  about  matters  of  fact  is  a  thing  too 
notorious.  We  live  in  a  world  of  realities  that 
can  be  infinitely  useful  or  infinitely  harmful. 

20C 


THE    NOTION    OF    TRUTH 

Ideas  that  tell  us  which  of  them  to  expect 
count  as  the  true  ideas  in  all  this  primary 
sphere  of  verification,  and  the  pursuit  of  such 
ideas  is  a  primary  human  duty.  The  pos-  11 
session  of  truth,  so  far  from  being  here  an  j 
end  in  itself,  is  only  a  preliminary  means 
towards  other  vital  satisfactions.  If  I  am 
lost  in  the  woods  and  starved,  and  find  what 
looks  like  a  cow-path,  it  is  of  the  utmost 
importance  that  I  should  think  of  a  human  ^ 
habitation  at  the  end  of  it,  for  if  I  do  so  and 
follow  it,  I  save  myself.  The  true  thought  is 
useful  here  because  the  house  w^hich  is  its  ob- 
ject is  useful.  The  practical  value  of  true  ideas 
is  thus  primarily  derived  from  the  practical 
importance  of  their  objects  to  us.  Their  ob- 
jects are,  indeed,  not  important  at  all  times. 
I  may  on  another  occasion  have  no  use  for  the 
house;  and  then  my  idea  of  it,  however  veri- 
fiable, will  be  practically  irrelevant,  and  had 
better  remain  latent.  Yet  since  almost  any 
object  may  some  day  become  temporarily 
important,  the  advantage  of  having  a  general 
stock  of  extra  truths,  of  ideas  that  shall  be  true 

203 


PRAGMATISM 

of  merely  possible  situations,  is  obvious.  We 
store  such  extra  truths  away  in  our  memories, 
and  with  the  overflow  we  fill  our  books  of  refer- 
ence. Whenever  such  an  extra  truth  becomes 
practically  relevant  to  one  of  our  emergencies, 
it  passes  from  cold-storage  to  do  work  in  the 
world  and  our  belief  in  it  grows  active.  You 
can  say  of  it  then  either  that  *it  is  useful  be- 
cause it  is  true'  or  that  'it  is  true  because  it  is 
useful.'  Both  these  phrases  mean  exactly  the 
same  thing,  namely  that  here  is  an  idea  that 
gets  fulfilled  and  can  be  verified. /I'rue  is  the 
name  for  whatever  idea  starts  the  verification- 
process,  useful  is  the  name  for  its  completed 
function  in  experience.^  True  ideas  would  never 
have  been  singled  out  as  such,  would  never 
have  acquired  a  class-name,  least  of  all  a  name 
suggesting  value,  unless  they  had  been  useful 
I  from  the  outset  in  this  way. 

From  this  simple  cue  pragmatism  gets  her 
general  notion  of  truth  as  something  essentially 
bound  up  with  the  way  in  which  one  moment 
in  our  experience  may  lead  us  towards  other 
moments  which  it  will  be  worth  while  to  have 

20^ 


THE    NOTION    OF    TRUTH 

been  led  to.  Primarily,  and  on  the  common - 
sense  level,  the  truth  of  a  state  of  mind  means 
this  function  of  a  leading  that  is  worth  while, 
When  a  moment  in  our  experience,  of  any  kind 
whatever,  inspires  us  with  a  thought  that  is 
true,  that  means  that  sooner  or  later  we  dip  by 
that  thought's  guidance  into  the  particulars  of 
experience  again  and  make  advantageous  con- 
nexion with  them.  This  is  a  vague  enough 
statement,  but  I  beg  you  to  retain  it,  for  it  is 
essential. 

Our  experience  meanwhile  is  all  shot  through 
with  regularities.  One  bit  of  it  can  warn  us  to 
get  ready  for  another  bit,  can  *  intend'  or  be 
'significant  of  that  remoter  object.  The  ob- 
ject's advent  is  the  significance's  verification. 
Truth,  in  these  cases,  meaning  nothing  but 
eventual  verification,  is  manifestly  incompat 
ible  with  waywardness  on  our  part.  AVoe  to 
him  whose  beliefs  play  fast  and  loose  with  the 
order  which  realities  follow  in  his  experience; 
they  will  lead  him  nowhere  or  else  make  false 

connexions. 

205 


PRAGMATISM 

By  'realities'  or  'objects'  here,  we  raean 
either  things  of  common  sense,  sensibly  pre- 
sent, or  else  common-sense  relations,  such  as 
dates,  places,  distances,  kinds,  activities.  Fol- 
lowing our  mental  image  of  a  house  along  the 
cow-path,  we  actually  come  to  see  the  house; 
we  get  the  image's  full  verification.  Such 
simply  and  fully  verified  leadings  are  certainly 
the  originals  and  prototypes  of  the  truth-process. 
Experience  offers  indeed  other  forms  of  truth- 
process,  but  they  are  all  conceivable  as  being 
primary  verifications  arrested,  multiplied  or 
substituted  one  for  another. 

Take,  for  instance,  yonder  object  on  the 
wall.  You  and  I  consider  it  to  be  a  'clock,' 
altho  no  one  of  us  has  seen  the  hidden  works 
that  make  it  one.  We  let  our  notion  pass  for 
true  without  attempting  to  verify.  If  truths 
mean  verification-process  essentially,  ought  we 
then  to  call  such  unverified  truths  as  this  abort- 
ive.^ No,  for  they  form  the  overwhelmingly 
large  number  of  the  truths  we  live  by.  Indirect 
V  as   well   as   direct  verifications   pass   muster. 

Where  circumstantial  evidence  is  sufficient,  we 

20G 


THE    NOTION    OF    TRUTH 

can  go  without  eye-witnessing.  Just  as  we  here 
assume  Japan  to  exist  without  ever  having 
been  there,  because  it  works  to  do  so,  every- 
thing we  know  conspiring  with  the  belief,  and 
nothing  interfering,  so  we  assume  that  thing 
to  be  a  clock.  We  use  it  as  a  clock,  regulating 
the  length  of  our  lecture  by  it.  The  verifica- 
tion of  the  assumption  here  means  its  leading 
to  no  frustration  or  contradiction.  Yeri&abil- 
ity  of  wheels  and  w^eights  and  pendulum  is  as 
good  as  verification.  For  one  truth-process 
completed  there  are  a  million  in  our  lives  that 
function  in  this  state  of  nascency.  They  turn 
us  toioards  direct  verification;  lead  us  into  the 
surroundings  of  the  objects  they  envisage ;  and 
then,  if  everything  runs  on  harmoniously,  we 
are  so  sure  that  verification  is  possible  that 
we  omit  it,  and  are  usually  justified  by  all 
that  happens. 

Truth  lives,  in  fact,  for  the  most  part  on 
a  credit  system.  Our  thoughts  and  beliefs 
'pass,'  so  long  as  nothing  challenges  them,  just 
as  bank-notes  pass  so  long  as  nobody  refuses 
them.  But  this  all  points  to  direct  face-to-face 

207 


PRAGMATISM 

verifications  somewhere,  without  which  the 
fabric  of  truth  collapses  like  a  financial  system 
with  no  cash-basis  whatever.  You  accept  my 
verification  of  one  thing,  I  yours  of  another. 
We  trade  on  each  other's  truth.  But  beliefs 
verified  concretely  by  somebody  are  the  posts 
of  the  whole  superstructure. 

Another  great  reason  —  beside  economy  of 
time  —  for  waiving  complete  verification  in 
the  usual  business  of  life  is  that  all  things  exist 
in  kinds  and  not  singly.  Our  world  is  found 
once  for  all  to  have  that  peculiarity.  So  that 
when  we  have  once  directly  verified  our  ideas 
about  one  specimen  of  a  kind,  we  consider  our- 
selves free  to  apply  them  to  other  specimens 
without  verification.  A  mind  that  habitually 
discerns  the  kind  of  thing  before  it,  and  acts 
by  the  law  of  the  kind  immediately,  w^ithout 
pausing  to  verify,  will  be  a  'true'  mind  in 
ninety-nine  out  of  a  hundred  emergencies, 
proved  so  by  its  conduct  fitting  everything  it 
meets,  and  getting  no  refutation. 

Indirectly  or  only  ^potentially  verifying  pro- 
cesses may  thus  he  true  as  well  as  full  verifica- 

208 


THE    NOTION    OF    TRUTH 

tion-processes .  They  work  as  true  processes 
would  work,  give  us  the  same  advantages,  and 
claim  our  recotjnition  for  the  same  reasons. 
All  this  on  the  common-sense  level  of  matters 
of  fact,  which  we  are  alone  considering. 

But  matters  of  fact  are  not  our  only  stock 
in  trade.  Relations  among  purely  mental  ideas 
form  another  sphere  where  true  and  false  be- 
liefs obtain,  and  here  the  beliefs  are  absolute, 
or  unconditional.  When  they  are  true  they 
bear  the  name  either  of  definitions  or  of  prin- 
ciples. It  is  either  a  principle  or  a  definition 
that  1  and  1  make  2,  that  2  and  1  make  3,  and 
so  on;  that  white  differs  less  from  gray  than 
it  does  from  black ;  that  when  the  cause  begins 
to  act  the  effect  also  commences.  Such  pro- 
positions hold  of  all  possible  *  ones, '  of  all  con- 
ceivable 'whites'  and  *  grays'  and  *  causes.' 
The  objects  here  are  mental  objects.  Their 
relations  are  perceptually  obvious  at  a  glance, 
and  no  sense- verification  is  necessary.  More- 
over, once  true,  always  true,  of  those  same 
mental  objects.    Truth  here  has  an  *  eternal ' 

209 


PRAGMATISM 

character.  If  you  can  find  a  concrete  thing  any- 
where that  is  *one'  or  'white'  or  *gray'  or  an 
*  effect,'  then  your  principles  will  everlastingly 
apply  to  it.  It  is  but  a  case  of  ascertaining 
the  kind,  and  then  applying  the  law  of  its 
kind  to  the  particular  object.  You  are  sure 
to  get  truth  if  you  can  but  name  the  kind 
rightly,  for  your  mental  relations  hold  good 
of  everything  of  that  kind  without  exception. 
If  you  then,  nevertheless,  failed  to  get  truth 
concretely,  you  would  say  that  you  had  classed 
your  real  objects  wrongly. 

In  this  realm  of  mental  relations,  truth 
again  is  an  affair  of  leading.  We  relate  one 
abstract  idea  with  another,  framing  in  the 
end  great  systems  of  logical  and  mathematical 
truth,  under  the  respective  terms  of  which  the 
sensible  facts  of  experience  eventually  arrange 
themselves,  so  that  our  eternal  truths  hold 
good  of  realities  also.  This  marriage  of  fact 
and  theory  is  endlessly  fertile.  What  we  say 
is  here  already  true  in  advance  of  special  veri- 
fication,!/ we  have  subsumed  our  objects  rightly. 
Our  ready-made  ideal  framework  for  all  sorts 

210 


THE    NOTION    OF    TRUTH 

of  possible  objects  follows  from  the  very  struc- 
ture of  our  thinking.  We  can  no  more  play 
fast  and  loose  with  these  abstract  relations 
than  we  can  do  so  with  our  sense-experiences. 
They  coerce  us;  we  must  treat  them  consis- 
tently, whether  or  not  we  like  the  results.  The 
rules  of  addition  apply  to  our  debts  as  rigor- 
ously as  to  our  assets.  The  hundredth  decimal 
of  77,  the  ratio  of  the  circumference  to  its  dia- 
meter, is  predetermined  ideally  now,  tho  no 
one  may  have  computed  it.  If  we  should 
ever  need  the  figure  in  our  dealings  with  an 
actual  circle  we  should  need  to  have  it  given 
rightly,  calculated  by  the  usual  rules;  for  it  is 
the  same  kind  of  truth  that  those  rules  else- 
w^here  calculate. 

Between  the  coercions  of  the  sensible  order 
and  those  of  the  ideal  order,  our  mind  is  thus 
wedged  tightly.  Our  ideas  must  agree  with 
realities,  be  such  realities  concrete  or  abstract, 
be  they  facts  or  be  they  principles,  under 
penalty  of  endless  inconsistency  and  frustra- 
tion. 

So  far,  intellectualists  can  raise  no  protest. 

211 


PRAGMATISM 

They  can  only  say  that  we  have  barely  touched 
the  skin  of  the  matter. 

Realities  mean,  then,  either  concrete  facts, 
or  abstract  kinds  of  thing  and  relations  per- 
ceived intuitively  between  them.  They  fur- 
thermore and  thirdly  mean,  as  things  that 
new  ideas  of  ours  must  no  less  take  account 
of,  the  whole  body  of  other  truths  already 
in  our  possession.  But  what  now  does  'agree- 
ment' with  such  threefold  realities  mean  ?  — 
to  use  again  the  definition  that  is  current. 

Here  it  is  that  pragmatism  and  intellectual- 
ism  begin  to  part  company.  Primarily,  no 
doubt,  to  agree  means  to  copy,  but  we  saw 
that  the  mere  word  'clock'  would  do  instead 
of  a  mental  picture  of  its  works,  and  that  of 
many  realities  our  ideas  can  only  be  symbols 
and  not  copies.  'Past  time,'  'power,'  'spon- 
taneity,'— how  can  our  mind  copy  such  real- 
ities ? 

To  '  agree '  in  the  widest  sense  with  a  reality 
can  only  mean  to  be  guided  either  straight  up  to 
it  or  into  its  surroundings,  or  to  be  put  into  such 

212 


THE    NOTION    OF    TRUTH 

working  touch  with  it  as  to  handle  either  it  or 
something  connected  with  it  better  than  if  ive 
disagreed.  Better  either  intellectually  or  prac- 
tically! And  often  agreement  will  only  mean 
the  negative  fact  that  nothing  contradictory 
from  the  quarter  of  that  reality  comes  to  inter- 
fere with  the  way  in  which  our  ideas  guide  us 
elsewhere.  To  copy  a  reality  is,  indeed,  one 
very  important  way  of  agreeing  with  it,  but  it 
is  far  from  being  essential.  The  essential  thing 
is  the  process  of  being  guided.  Any  idea  that 
helps  us  to  deal,  whether  practically  or  in- 
tellectually, with  either  the  reality  or  its  be- 
longings, that  doesn't  entangle  our  progress 
in  frustrations,  that  fits,  in  fact,  and  adapts 
our  life  to  the  reality's  whole  setting,  will  agree 
sufficiently  to  meet  the  requirement.  It  will 
hold  true  of  that  reality. 

Thus,  names  are  just  as  'true'  or  'false'  as 
definite  mental  pictures  are.  They  set  up  sim- 
ilar verification-processes,  and  lead  to  fully 
equivalent  practical  results. 

All  human  thinking  gets  discursified;  we 
exchange  ideas;  we  lend  and  borrow  verifica- 

213 


--\ 


PRAGMATISM 

tions,  get  them  from  one  another  by  means  of 
social  intercourse.  All  truth  thus  gets  verbally 
built  out,  stored  up,  and  made  available  for 
every  one.  Hence,  we  must  talk  consistently 
just  as  we  must  think  consistently:  for  both 
in  talk  and  thought  we  deal  with  kinds. 
Names  are  arbitrary,  but  once  understood 
they  must  be  kept  to.  We  mustn't  now  call 
Abel  *Cain'  or  Cain  'Abel.'  If  we  do,  we  un- 
gear ourselves  from  the  whole  book  of  Genesis, 
and  from  all  its  connexions  with  the  universe 
of  speech  and  fact  down  to  the  present  time. 
We  throw  ourselves  out  of  whatever  truth  that 
entire  system  of  speech  and  fact  may  embody. 
The  overwhelming  majority  of  our  true 
ideas  admit  of  no  direct  or  face-to-face  veri- 
fication —  those  of  past  history,  for  example, 
as  of  Cain  and  Abel.  The  stream  of  time  can 
be  remounted  only  verbally,  or  verified  indi- 
rectly by  the  present  prolongations  or  effects 
of  what  the  past  harbored.  Yet  if  they  agree 
with  these  verbalities  and  effects,  we  can  know 
that  our  ideas  of  the  past  are  true.  As  true  as 
past  time  itself  was,  so  true  was  Julius  Caesar, 

214 


THE    NOTION    OF    TRUTH 

so  true  were  antediluvian  monsters,  all  in  their 
proper  dates  and  settings.  That  past  time 
itself  was,  is  guaranteed  by  its  coherence  with 
everything  that's  present.  True  as  the  present 
is,  the  past  was  also. 

Agreement  thus  turns  out  to  be  essentially 
an  affair  of  leading  —  leading  that  is  useful 
because  it  is  into  quarters  that  contain  objects 
that  are  important.  True  ideas  lead  us  into 
useful  verbal  and  conceptual  quarters  as  w  ell 
as  directly  up  to  useful  sensible  termini.  They 
lead  to  consistency,  stability  and  iflowing  hu- 
man intercourse.  They  lead  away  from  excen- 
tricity  and  isolation,  from  foiled  and  barren 
thinking.  The  untrammelled  flowing  of  the 
leading-process,  its  general  freedom  from 
clash  and  contradiction,  passes  for  its  indirect 
verification;  but  all  roads  lead  to  Rome,  and 
in  the  end  and  eventually,  all  true  processes 
must  lead  to  the  face  of  directly  verifying 
sensible  experiences  somewhere,  which  some- 
body's ideas  have  copied. 

Such  is  the  large  loose  way  in  which  the 
pragmatist  interprets  the  w^ord  agreement.  He 

215 


PRAGMATISM 

treats  it  altogether  practically.  He  lets  it  cover 
any  process  of  conduction  from  a  present  idea 
to  a  future  terminus,  provided  only  it  run 
prosperously.  It  is  only  thus  that  'scientific' 
ideas,  flying  as  they  do  beyond  common  sense, 
can  be  said  to  agree  with  their  realities.  It  is, 
as  I  have  already  said,  as  if  reality  were  made 
of  ether,  atoms  or  electrons,  but  we  must  n't 
think  so  literally.  The  term  'energy'  does  n't 
even  pretend  to  stand  for  anything  'object- 
ive.' It  is  only  a  way  of  measuring  the  sur- 
face of  phenomena  so  as  to  string  their  changes 
on  a  simple  formula. 

Yet  in  the  choice  of  these  man-made  formu- 
las we  can  not  be  capricious  with  impunity 
any  more  than  we  can  be  capricious  on  the 
common-sense  practical  level.  We  must  find 
a  theory  that  will  work;  and  that  means  some- 
thing extremely  difficult;  for  our  theory  must 
mediate  between  all  previous  truths  and  cer- 
tain new  experiences.  It  must  derange  com- 
mon sense  and  previous  belief  as  little  as 
possible,  and  it  must  lead  to  some  sensible 
terminus  or  other  that  can  be  verified  exactly. 

216 


THE    NOTION    OF    TRUTH 

To  'work'  means  both  these  things;  and  the 
squeeze  is  so  tight  that  there  is  little  loose  pla^ 
for  any  hypothesis.  Our  theories  are  wedged 
and  controlled  as  nothing  else  is.  Yet  some- 
times alternative  theoretic  formulas  are  equally 
compatible  with  all  the  truths  we  know,  and 
then  we  choose  between  them  for  subjective 
reasons.  Vse  choose  the  kind  of  theory  to  which 
we  are  already  partial;  we  follow  *  elegance' 
or  'economy.'  Clerk-Maxwell  somewhere  says 
it  would  be  'poor  scientific  taste'  to  choose  the 
more  complicated  of  two  equally  well-evi- 
denced conceptions;  and  you  w^ill  all  agree 
with  him.  Truth  in  science  is  what  gives  us 
the  maximum  possible  sum  of  satisfactions, 
taste  included,  but  consistency  both  with  pre- 
vious truth  and  with  novel  fact  is  always  the 
most  imperious  claimant. 

I  have  led  you  through  a  very  sandy  deserf , 
But  now,  if  I  may  be  allowed  so  vulgar  an  ex- 
pression, we  begin  to  taste  the  milk  in  the  cocoa- 
nut.  Our  rationalist  critics  here  discharge  their 
batteries  upon  us,  and  to  reply  to  them  will  take 

217 


yl 


2 


PRAGMATISM 

us  out  from  all  this  dryness  into  full  sight  of 
a  momentous  philosophical  alternative. 
/  Our  account  of  truth  is  an  account  of  truths 
in  the  plural,  of  processes  of  leading,  realized 
in  rebus,  and  having  only  this  quality  in  com- 
mon, that  they  pay.  They  pay  by  guiding  us 
into  or  towards  some  part  of  a  system  that  dips 
at  numerous  points  into  sense-percepts,  which 
we  may  copy  mentally  or  not,  but  with  which 
at  any  rate  we  are  now  in  the  kind  of  commerce 
vaguely  designated  as  verification.  Truth  for 
us  is  simply  a  collective  name  for  verification- 
processes,  just  as  health,  w^ealth,  strength,  etc., 
are  names  for  other  processes  connected  with 
life,  and  also  pursued  because  it  pays  to  pur- 
sue them.  Truth  is  made,  just  as  health,  wealth 

\  and  strength  are  made,  in  the  course  of  experi- 

'   ence. 

"^  ^  Here  rationalism  is  instantaneously  up  in 
arms  against  us.  I  can  imagine  a  rationalist  to 
talk  as  follows: 

** Truth  is  not  made,"  he  will  say;  "it  abso- 
lutely obtains,  being  a  unique  relation  that 
does  not  wait  upon  any  process,   but  shoots 

218 


THE    NOTION    OF    TRUTH 

straight  over  the  head  of  experience,  and  hits 
its  reality  every  time.  Our  belief  that  yon  thing 
on  the  wall  is  a  clock  is  true  already,  altho 
no  one  in  the  whole  history  of  the  world  should 
verify  it.   The  bare  quality  of  standing  in  that 
transcendent    relation    is    what    makes    any 
thought  true  that  possesses  it,  whether  or  not 
there  be  verification.    You  pragmatists  put  the 
cart  before  the  horse  in  making  truth's  being 
reside    in    verification-processes.     These    are 
merely  signs  of  its  being,  merely  our  lame  ways 
of  ascertaining  after  the  fact,  which  of  our  ideas 
already  has  possessed  the  wondrous  quality. 
The  quality  itself  is  timeless,  like  all  essences 
and  natures.   Thoughts  partake  of  it  directly, 
as  they  partake  of  falsity  or  of  irrelevancy.   It 
can't  be  analyzed  away  into  pragmatic  con- 
sequences." 

The  whole  plausibility  of  this  rationalist 
tirade  is  due  to  the  fact  to  which  we  have  al- 
ready paid  so  much  attention.  In  our  world, 
namely,  abounding  as  it  does  in  things  of  simi- 
lar kinds  and  similarly  associated,  one  verifica- 
tion serves  for  others  of  its  kind,  and  one  great 

219 


PRAGMATISM 

use  of  knowing  things  is  to  be  led  not  so  much 
to  them  as  to  their  associates,  especially  to 
human  talk  about  them.  The  quality  of  truth, 
obtaining  ante  rem,  pragmatically  means,  then, 
the  fact  that  in  such  a  world  innumerable  ideas 
work  better  by  their  indirect  or  possible  than 
by  their  direct  and  actual  verification.  Truth 
ante  rem  means  only  verifiability,  then;  or 
else  it  is  a  case  of  the  stock  rationalist  trick  of 
treating  the  name  of  a  concrete  phenomenal 
reality  as  an  independent  prior  entity,  and 
placing  it  behind  the  reality  as  its  explanation. 
Professor  Mach  quotes  somewhere  an  epigram 
of  Lessing's: 

Sagt  Hanschen  Schlau  zu  Vetter  Fritz, 
"Wie  kommt  es,  Vetter  Fritzen, 
Dass  grad'  die  Reichsten  in  der  Welt, 
Das  meiste  Geld  besitzen  ?  " 

Hanschen  Schlau  here  treats  the  principle 
'wealth'  as  something  distinct  from  the  facts 
denoted  by  the  man's  being  rich.  It  antedates 
them;  the  facts  become  only  a  sort  of  second- 
ary coincidence  with  the  rich  man's  essential 
nature. 

220 


THE    NOTION    OF    TRUTH 

In  the  case  of  *  wealth'  we  all  see  the  fallacy. 
We  know  that  wealth  is  but  a  name  for  con- 
crete processes  that  certain  men's  lives  play 
a  part  in,  and  not  a  natural  excellence  found  in 
Messrs.  Rockefeller  and  Carnegie,  but  not  in 
the  rest  of  us. 

Like  wealth,  health  also  lives  m  rebus.  It  is 
a  name  for  processes,  as  digestion,  circulation, 
sleep,  etc.,  that  go  on  happily,  tho  in  this  in- 
stance we  are  more  inclined  to  think  of  it  as  a 
principle  and  to  say  the  man  digests  and  sleeps 
so  well  because  he  is  so  healthy. 

AYith  '  strength'  we  are,  I  think,  more  ration- 
alistic still,  and  decidedly  inclined  to  treat  it 
as  an  excellence  pre-existing  in  the  man  and 
explanatory  of  the  herculean  performances  of 
his  muscles. 

With  *  truth'  most  people  go  over  the  border 
entirely,  and  treat  the  rationalistic  account  as 
self-evident.  But  really  all  these  words  in  th 
are  exactly  similar.  Truth  exists  ante  rem  just 
as  much  and  as  little  as  the  other  things  do. 

The  scholastics,  following  Aristotle,  made 
much  of  the  distinction  between  habit  and  act. 

221 


\ 


PRAGMATISM 

Health  in  actu  means,  among  other  things, 
good  sleeping  and  digesting.    But  a  healthy 
man  need  not  always  be  sleeping,  or  always 
digesting,  any  more  than  a  wealthy  man  need 
be  always  handling  money,  or  a  strong  man 
always  lifting  weights.   All  such  qualities  sink 
to  the  status  of  *  habits'  between  their  times  of 
exercise;   and  similarly  truth  becomes  a  habit 
of  certain  of  our  ideas  and   beliefs    in   their 
intervals  of  rest  from  their  verifying  activities. 
But  those  activities  are  the  root  of  the  whole 
matter,  and  the  condition  of  there  being  any 
habit  to  exist  in  the  intervals. 
W  y  '  The  true,^  to  put  it  very  briefly,  is  only  the 
I  expedient  in  the  way  of  our  thinking,  just  as 
I  '  the  right '  is  only  the  expedient  in  the  way  of 
I  our  behaving.  Expedient  in  almost  anyfashion; 
and  expedient  in  the  long  run  and  on  the  whole 
of  course;   for  what  meets  expediently  all  the 
experience  in  sight  won't  necessarily  meet  all 
farther  experiences  equally  satisfactorily.   Ex- 
perience, as  we  know,  has  ways  of  boiling  over, 
and  making  us  correct  our  present  formulas. 
The  'absolutely'  true,  meaning  what  no  far- 

222 


THE    NOTION    OF   TRUTH 

ther  experience  will  ever  alter,  is  that  ideal  van-  ^ 
ishing-point  towards  which  we  imagine  that  all 
our  temporary  truths  will  some  day  converge. ' 
It  runs  on  all  fours  with  the  perfectly  wise  man, 
and  with  the  absolutely  complete  experience; 
and,  if  these  ideals  are  ever  realized,  they  will 
all  be  realized  together.  Meanwhile  we  have  to 
live  to-day  by  what  truth  we  can  get  to-day, 
and  be  ready  to-morrow  to  call  it  falsehood. 
Ptolemaic  astronomy,  euclidean   space,  aris- 
totelian   logic,    scholastic    metaphysics,    were 
expedient  for  centuries,  but  human  experience 
has  boiled  over  those  limits,  and  we  now  call  t 
these  things  only  relatively  true,  or  true  within  ^ 
those  borders  of  experience.   'Absolutely'  they  | 
are  false;  for  we  know  that  those  limits  were  cas- 
ual, and  might  have  been  transcended  by  past 
theorists  just  as  they  are  by  present  thinkers. 
When  new  experiences  lead  to  retrospective 
judgments,  using  the  past  tense,  w^hat  these 
judgments  utter  was  true,  even  tho  no  past 
thinker  had  been  led  there.  We  live  forwards, 
a  Danish  thinker  has  said,  but  we  understand 
backw^ards.    The  present  sheds  a  backward 

223 


PRAGMATISM 

light  on  the  world's  previous  processes.  They 
may  have  been  truth-processes  for  the  actors  in 
them.  They  are  not  so  for  one  who  knows  the 
later  revelations  of  the  story. 

This  regulative  notion  of  a  potential  better 
truth  to  be  established  later,  possibly  to  be 
established  some  day  absolutely,  and  having 
powers  of  retroactive  legislation,  turns  its  face, 
like  all  pragmatist  notions,  towards  concrete- 
ness  of  fact,  and  towards  the  future.  Like  the 
half-truths,  the  absolute  truth  will  have  to 
be  made,  made  as  a  relation  incidental  to  the 
growth  of  a  mass  of  verification-experience, 
to  which  the  half-true  ideas  are  all  along  con- 
tributing their  quota. 
^  I  have   already  insisted   on  the  fact  that 

.^  truth  is  made  largely  out  of  previous  truths. 

Men's  beliefs  at  any  time  are  so  much  experi- 
ence funded.  But  the  beliefs  are  themselves 
parts  of  the  sum  total  of  the  world's  experience, 

^^  and  become  matter,  therefore,  for  the  next 
day's  funding  operations.  So  far  as  reality 
means  experienceable  reality,  both  it  and  the 
truths  men  gain  about  it  are  everlastingly  in 

^24 


THE    NOTION    OF    TRUTH 

process    of   mutation  —  mutation   towards    a    ^ 
definite   goal,   it   may   be  —  but   still   muta- 
tion. -^ 

Mathematicians  can  solve  problems  with 
two  variables.  On  the  Newtonian  theory,  for 
instance,  acceleration  varies  with  distance,  but 
distance  also  varies  with  acceleration.  In  the 
realm  of  truth-processes  facts  come  independ- 
ently and  determine  our  beliefs  provisionally. 
But  these  beliefs  make  us  act,  and  as  fast  as 
they  do  so,  they  bring  into  sight  or  into  exist- 
ence new  facts  which  re-determine  the  beliefs 
accordingly.  So  the  whole  coil  and  ball  of 
truth,  as  it  rolls  up,  is  the  product  of  a  double 
influence.  Truths  emerge  from  facts ;  but  they 
dip  forward  into  facts  again  and  add  to  them; 
which  facts  again  create  or  reveal  new  truth 
(the  word  is  indifferent)  and  so  on  indefinitely. 
The  *  facts'  themselves  meanwhile  are  not  true. 
They  simply  are.   Truth  is  the  function  of  the 

beliefs  that  start  and  terminate  amonoj  them.       1 

I 

The  case  is  like  a  snowball's  growth,  due  as       I 

it  is  to  the  distribution  of  the  snow  on  the  one 

hand,  and  to  the  successive  pushes  of  the  boys        | 

225 


PRAGMATISM 

on  the  other,  with  these  factors  co-determin 
ing  each  other  incessantly. 

The  most  fateful  point  of  difference  between 
being  a  rationalist  and  being  a  pragmatist  is 
now  fully  in  sight.  Experience  is  in  mutation, 
and  our  psychological  ascertainments  of  truth 
are  in  mutation  —  so  much  rationalism  will 
allow;  but  never  that  either  reality  itself  or 
truth  itself  is  mutable.  Reality  stands  complete 
and  ready-made  from  all  eternity,  rationalism 
insists,  and  the  agreement  of  our  ideas  with  it 
is  that  unique  unanalyzable  virtue  in  them  of 
which  she  has  already  told  us.  As  that  intrinsic 
excellence,  their  truth  has  nothing  to  do  with 
our  experiences.  It  adds  nothing  to  the  content 
of  experience.  It  makes  no  difference  to  reality 
itself;  it  is  supervenient,  inert,  static,  a  reflex- 
ion merely.  It  doesn't  exist,  it  holds  or  ob- 
tains, it  belongs  to  another  dimension  from 
that  of  either  facts  or  fact-relations,  belongs,  in 
short,  to  the  epistemological  dimension  —  and 
with  that  big  word  rationalism  closes  the  dis- 
cussion. 

226 


THE    NOTION    OF    TRUTH 

Thus,  just  as  pragmatism  faces  forward  to 
the  future,  so  does  rationalism  here  again  face 
backward  to  a  past  eternity.  True  to  her  invet- 
erate habit,  rationalism  reverts  to  *  principles,' 
and  thinks  that  when  an  abstraction  once  is( 
named,  we  own  an  oracular  solution. 

The  tremendous  pregnancy  in  the  way  of 
consequences  for  life  of  this  radical  difference 
of  outlook  will  only  become  apparent  in  my 
later  lectures.  I  wish  meanwhile  to  close  this 
lecture  by  showing  that  rationalism's  sublim- 
ity does  not  save  it  from  inanity. 

When,  namely,  you  ask  rationalists,  instead 
of  accusing  pragmatism  of  desecrating  the 
notion  of  truth,  to  define  it  themselves  by 
saying  exactly  w^hat  they  understand  by  it, 
the  only  positive  attempts  I  can  think  of  are 
these  tw^o: 

1.  **  Truth  is  the  system  of  propositions 
which  have  an  unconditional  claim  to  be  re- 
cognized as  valid."  ^ 

2.  Truth  is  a  name  for  all  those  judgments 

*  A.  E.  Taylor,  Philosophical  Review,  vol.  xiv,  p.  288. 

227 


PRAGMATISM 

which  we  find  ourselves  under  obligation  to 
make  by  a  kind  of  imperative  duty.* 

The  first  thing  that  strikes  one  in  such  de- 
finitions is  their  unutterable  triviality.  They 
are  absolutely  true,  of  course,  but  absolutely  in- 
significant until  you  handle  them  pragmatic- 
ally. What  do  you  mean  by  'claim'  here,  and 
what  do  you  mean  by  'duty'.^  As  summary 
names  for  the  concrete  reasons  why  thinking 
in  true  ways  is  overwhelmingly  expedient  and 
good  for  mortal  men,  it  is  all  right  to  talk  of 
claims  on  reality's  part  to  be  agreed  with,  and 
of  obligations  on  our  part  to  agree.  We  feel 
both  the  claims  and  the  obligations,  and  we 
feel  them  for  just  those  reasons. 

But  the  rationalists  who  talk  of  claim  and 
obligation  expressly  say  that  they  have  nothing 
to  do  with  our  practical  interests  or  personal 
reasons.  Our  reasons  for  agreeing  are  psycho- 
logical facts,  they  say,  relative  to  each  thinker, 
and  to  the  accidents  of  his  life.  They  are  his 
evidence  merely,  they  are  no  part  of  the  life  of 

^  H.  Rickert,  Der  Gegensiand  der  Erkenntniss,  chapter  on  *Dio 
Urtheilsnothwendigkeit.  * 


THE    NOTION    OF    TRUTH 

truth  itself.  That  life  transacts  itself  in  a  purely 
logical  or  epistemological,as  distinguished  from 
a  psychological,  dimension,  and  its  claims  ante- 
date and  exceed  all  personal  motivations  what- 
soever. Tho  neither  man  nor  God  should  ever 
ascertain  truth,  the  word  would  still  have  to 
be  defined  as  that  which  ought  to  be  ascer- 
tained and  recognized. 

There  never  was  a  more  exquisite  example 
of  an  idea  abstracted  from  the  concretes  of 
experience  and  then  used  to  oppose  and  negate 
what  it  was  abstracted  from. 

Philosophy  and  common  life  abound  in  sim- 
ilar instances.  The  *  sentimentalist  fallacy'  is 
to  shed  tears  over  abstract  justice  and  gener- 
osity, beauty,  etc.,  and  never  to  know  these 
qualities  when  you  meet  them  in  the  street, 
because  the  circumstances  make  them  vulgar. 
Thus  I  read  in  the  privately  printed  biography 
of  an  eminently  rationalistic  mind:  **It  was 
strange  that  w^ith  such  admiration  for  beauty 
in  the  abstract,  my  brother  had  no  enthusiasm 
for  fine  architecture,  for  beautiful  painting,  or 
for  flowers."  And  in  almost  the  last  philosophic 

229 


PRAGMATISM 

work  I  have  read,  I  find  such  passages  as  the 
following:  "Justice  is  ideal,  solely  ideal.  Rea- 
son conceives  that  it  ought  to  exist,  but  ex- 
perience shows  that  it  can  not.  .  .  .  Truth, 
which  ought  to  be,  can  not  be.  .  .  .  Reason 
is  deformed  by  experience.  As  soon  as  reason 
enters  experience  it  becomes  contrary  to  rea- 
son. 

The  rationalist's  fallacy  here  is  exactly  like 
the  sentimentalist's.  Both  extract  a  quality 
from  the  muddy  particulars  of  experience,  and 
find  it  so  pure  when  extracted  that  they  con- 
trast it  with  each  and  all  its  muddy  instances 
as  an  opposite  and  higher  nature.  All  the  while 
it  is  their  nature.  It  is  the  nature  of  truths 
to  be  validated,  verified.  It  pays  for  our  ideas 
to  be  validated.  Our  obligation  to  seek  truth  is 
part  of  our  general  obligation  to  do  what  pays. 
The  payments  true  ideas  bring  are  the  sole  why 
of  our  duty  to  follow  them.  Identical  whys  exist 
in  the  case  of  wealth  and  health. 

Truth  makes  no  other  kind  of  claim  and  im- 
poses no  other  kind  of  ought  than  health  and 
wealth  do.    All  these  claims  are  conditional; 

230 


THE    NOTION    OF    TRUTH 

the  concrete  benefits  we  gain  are  what  we 
mean  by  calling  the  pursuit  a  duty.  In  the  case 
of  truth,  untrue  beliefs  work  as  perniciously  in 
the  long  run  as  true  beliefs  work  beneficially. 
Talking  abstractly,  the  quality  *true'  may 
thus  be  said  to  grow  absolutely  precious  and 
the  quality  *  untrue'  absolutely  damnable:  the 
one  may  be  called  good,  the  other  bad,  uncon- 
ditionally. We  ought  to  think  the  true,  we 
ought  to  shun  the  false,  imperatively. 

But  if  we  treat  all  this  abstraction  literally 
and  oppose  it  to  its  mother  soil  in  experience, 
see  what  a  preposterous  position  we  w^ork  our- 
selves into. 

We  can  not  then  take  a  step  forward  in  our 
actual  thinking.  When  shall  I  acknowledge 
this  truth  and  when  that  ?  Shall  the  acknow- 
ledcrment  be  loud  ?  —  or  silent  ?  If  sometimes 
loud,  sometimes  silent,  which  now?  When  may 
a  truth  go  into  cold-storage  in  the  encyclo- 
pedia ?  and  w^hen  shall  it  come  out  for  battle  ? 
Must  I  constantly  be  repeating  the  truth  *  twice 
two  are  four'  because  of  its  eternal  claim  on 
recognition.^    or    is  it   sometimes   irrelevant.^ 

231 


PRAGMATISM 

Must  my  thoughts  dwell  night  and  day  on  my 
personal  sins  and  blemishes,  because  I  truly 
have  them  ?  — or  may  I  sink  and  ignore  them 
in  order  to  be  a  decent  social  unit,  and  not  a 
mass  of  morbid  melancholy  and  apology  ? 

It  is  quite  evident  that  our  obligation  to 
acknowledge  truth,  so  far  from  being  uncon- 
ditional, is  tremendously  conditioned.     Truth 

r  with  a  big  T,  and  in  the  singular,  claims  ab- 
stractly to  be  recognized,  of  course;  but  con- 
crete truths  in  the  plural  need  be  recognized 
only  when  their  recognition  is  expedient.    A 

^  truth  must  always  be  preferred  to  a  falsehood 
when  both  relate  to  the  situation;  but  when 
neither  does,  truth  is  as  little  of  a  duty  as  false- 
hood. If  you  ask  me  what  o'clock  it  is  and 
I  tell  you  that  I  live  at  95  Irving  Street,  my 
answer  may  indeed  be  true,  but  you  don't  see 
why  it  is  my  duty  to  give  it.  A  false  address 
would  be  as  much  to  the  purpose. 

With  this  admission  that  there  are  conditions 
that  limit  the  application  of  the  abstract  im- 
perative, the  pragmatistic  treatment  of  truth 
sweeps  back  upon  us  in  its  fulness.  Our  duty 


THE    NOTION    OF    TRUTH 

to  agree  with  reality  is  seen  to  be  grounded  in 
a  perfect  jungle  of  concrete  expediencies. 

When  Berkeley  had  explained  what  people 
meant  by  matter,  people  thought  that  he  denied 
matter's  existence.  When  Messrs.  Schiller 
and  Dewey  now  explain  what  people  mean  by 
truth,  they  are  accused  of  denying  its  existence. 
These  pragmatists  destroy  all  objective  stand- 
ards, critics  say,  and  put  foolishness  and  wis- 
dom on  one  level.  A  favorite  formula  for  de- 
scribing: Mr.  Schiller's  doctrines  and  mine  is 
that  we  are  persons  who  think  that  by  saying 
whatever  you  find  it  pleasant  to  say  and  calling 
it  truth  you  fulfil  every  pragmatistic  require- 
ment. 

I  leave  it  to  you  to  judge  whether  this  be  not 
an  impudent  slander.  Pent  in,  as  the  pragma- 
tist  more  than  any  one  else  sees  himself  to  be, 
between  the  w^hole  body  of  funded  truths 
squeezed  from  the  past  and  the  coercions  of  the 
w^orld  of  sense  about  him,  w^ho  so  well  as  he 
feels  the  immense  pressure  of  objective  control 
under  which  our  minds  perform  their  opera- 
tions ?  If  any  one  imagines  that  this  law  is  lax, 

233 


PRAGMATISM 

let  him  keep  its  commandment  one  day,  says 
Emerson.  We  have  heard  much  of  late  of  the 
uses  of  the  imagination  in  science.  It  is  high 
time  to  urge  the  use  of  a  little  imagination  in 
philosophy.  The  unwillingness  of  some  of  our 
critics  to  read  any  but  the  silliest  of  possible 
meanings  into  our  statements  is  as  discreditable 
to  their  imaginations  as  anything  I  know  in  re- 
cent philosophic  history.  Schiller  says  the  true 
is  that  which  '  works.'  Thereupon  he  is  treated 
as  one  who  limits  verification  to  the  lowest 
material  utilities.  Dewey  says  truth  is  what 
gives  'satisfaction.'  He  is  treated  as  one  who 
believes  in  calling  everything  true  which,  if  it 
were  true,  would  be  pleasant. 

Our  critics  certainly  need  more  imagination 
of  realities.  I  have  honestly  tried  to  stretch  my 
own  imagination  and  to  read  the  best  possible 
meaning  into  the  rationalist  conception,  but 
I  have  to  confess  that  it  still  completely  baffles 
me.  The  notion  of  a  reality  calling  on  us  to 
'agree'  with  it,  and  that  for  no  reasons,  but 
simply  because  its  claim  is  'unconditional'  or 
'transcendent,'  is  one  that  I  can  make  neither 

234 


THE    NOTION    OF    TRUTH 

head  nor  tail  of.  I  try  to  imagine  myself  as  the 
sole  reality  in  the  world,  and  then  to  imagine 
what  more  I  would  *  claim'  if  I  were  allowed 
to.  If  you  suggest  the  possibility  of  my  claim- 
ing that  a  mind  should  come  into  being  from 
out  of  the  void  inane  and  stand  and  copy  me, 
I  can  indeed  imagine  what  the  copying  might 
mean,  but  I  can  conjure  up  no  motive.  W  hat 
good  it  would  do  me  to  be  copied,  or  what 
good  it  w^ould  do  that  mind  to  copy  me,  if 
further  consequences  are  expressly  and  in  prin- 
ciple ruled  out  as  motives  for  the  claim  (as 
they  are  by  our  rationalist  authorities)  I  can 
not  fathom.  When  the  Irishman's  admirers 
ran  him  along  to  the  place  of  banquet  in  a 
sedan  chair  with  no  bottom,  he  said,  **  Faith, 
if  it  wasn't  for  the  honor  of  the  thing,  I  might 
as  well  have  come  on  foot."  So  here:  but  for 
the  honor  of  the  thing,  I  might  as  well  have 
remained  uncopied.  Copying  is  one  genuine 
mode  of  knowing  (which  for  some  strange 
reason  our  contemporary  transcendentalists 
seem  to  be  tumbling  over  each  other  to  re- 
pudiate);   but  when  we  get  beyond  copying, 

235 


PRAGMATISM 

and  fall  back  on  unnamed  forms  of  agreeing 
that  are  expressly  denied  to  be  either  copyings 
or  leadings  or  fittings,  or  any  other  processes 
pragmatically  definable,  the  what  of  the  *  agree- 
ment' claimed  becomes  as  unintelligible  as  the 
why  of  it.  Neither  content  nor  motive  can  be 
imagined  for  it.  It  is  an  absolutely  meaningless 
abstraction.^ 

Surely  in  this  field  of  truth  it  is  the  prag- 
matists  and  not  the  rationalists  who  are  the 
more  genuine  defenders  of  the  universe's 
rationality. 

^  I  am  not  forgetting  that  Professor  Rickert  long  ago  gave  up  the 
whole  notion  of  truth  being  founded  on  agreement  with  reality.  Reality 
according  to  him,  is  whatever  agrees  with  truth,  and  truth  is  founded 
solely  on  our  primal  duty.  This  fantastic  flight,  together  with  Mr. 
Joachim's  candid  confession  of  failure  in  his  book  The  Nature  of 
Truth,  seems  to  me  to  mark  the  bankruptcy  of  rationalism  when  deal- 
ing with  this  subject.  Rickert  deals  with  part  of  the  pragmatistic  po- 
sition under  the  head  of  what  he  calls '  Relativismus.'  I  can  not  discuss 
his  text  here.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  his  argumentation  in  that  chapter 
is  so  feeble  as  to  seem  almost  incredible  in  so  generally  able  a  writer. 


VII 

PRAGMATISM    AND    HUMANISM 


LECTURE    VII 
PRAGMATISM  AND  HUMANISM 

What  hardens  the  heart  of  every  one  I  ap- 
proach with  the  view  of  truth  sketched  in  my 
last  lecture  is  that  typical  idol  of  the  tribe, 
the  notion  of  the  Truth,  conceived  as  the  one 
answer,  determinate  and  complete,  to  the  one 
fixed  enigma  which  the  w^orld  is  believed  to 
propound.    For  popular  tradition,  it  is  all  the 
better  if  the  answer  be  oracular,  so  as  itself  to 
aw^aken  wonder  as  an  enigma  of  the  second 
order,  veiling  rather  than  revealing  what  its 
profundities  are  supposed  to  contain.    All  the 
great  single-word  answers  to  the  world's  rid- 
dle, such  as   God,  the  One,  Reason,   Law, 
Spirit,  Matter,  Nature,  Polarity,  the  Dialectic 
Process,  the  Idea,  the  Self,  the  Oversoul,  draw 
the   admiration   that   men  have   lavished   on 
them  from  this  oracular  role.   By  amateurs  in 
philosophy  and  professionals  alike,  the  uni- 
verse is  represented  as  a  queer  sort  of  petri- 
fied sphinx  whose  appeal  to  men  consists  in  a 
monotonous  challenge  to  his  divining  powers. 

239 


I 


PRAGMATISM 

The  Truth :  what  a  perfect  idol  of  the  ration- 
alistic mind !  I  read  in  an  old  letter  —  from 
a  gifted  friend  who  died  too  young  —  these 
words:  "In  everything,  in  science,  art,  morals 
and  religion,  there  must  be  one  system  that  is 
right  and  eve7'y  other  wrong."  How  character- 
istic of  the  enthusiasm  of  a  certain  stage  of 
youth!  At  twenty-one  we  rise  to  such  a  chal- 
lenge and  expect  to  find  the  system.  It  never 
occurs  to  most  of  us  even  later  that  the  ques- 
tion 'what  is  the  truth?'  is  no  real  question 
(being  irrelative  to  all  conditions)  and  that  the 
whole  notion  of  the  truth  is  an  abstraction  from 
the  fact  of  truths  in  the  plural,  a  mere  useful 
summarizing  phrase  like  the  Latin  Language 
or  the  Law. 

Common-law  judges  sometimes  talk  about 
the  law,  and  schoolmasters  talk  about  the 
latin  tongue,  in  a  way  to  make  their  hearers 
think  they  mean  entities  pre-existent  to  the  de- 
cisions or  to  the  words  and  syntax,  determin- 
ing them  unequivocally  and  requiring  them 
to  obey.  But  the  slightest  exercise  of  reflexion 
makes  us  see  that,  instead  of  being  principles 

2;o 


PRAGMATISM    AND    HUMANISM 

of  this  kind,  both  law  and  latin  are  results. 
Distinctions  between  the  lawful  and  the  unlaw- 
ful in  conduct,  or  between  the  correct  and  in- 
correct in  speech,  have  grown  up  incidentally 
among  the  interactions  of  men's  experiences 
in  detail ;  and  in  no  other  way  do  distinctions 
between  the  true  and  the  false  in  belief  ever 
grow  up.  Truth  grafts  itself  on  previous 
truth,  modifying  it  in  the  process,  just  as 
idiom  grafts  itself  on  previous  idiom,  and  law 
on  previous  law.  Given  previous  law  and  a 
novel  case,  and  the  judge  will  twist  them  into 
fresh  law.  Previous  idiom;  new  slang  or  meta- 
phor or  oddity  that  hits  the  public  taste;  — 
and  presto,  a  new  idiom  is  made.  Previous 
truth;  fresh  facts: — and  our  mind  finds  a  new 
truth. 

All  the  while,  however,  we  pretend  that  the 
eternal  is  unrolling,  that  the  one  previous  jus- 
tice, grammar  or  truth  are  simply  fulgurating 
and  not  being  made.  But  imagine  a  youth  in 
the  courtroom  trying  cases  with  his  abstract 
notion  of  'the'  law,  or  a  censor  of  speech  let 
loose  among  the  theatres  with  his  idea  of  'the* 

241 


PRAGMATISM 

mother-tongue,  or  a  professor  setting  up  to 
lecture  on  the  actual  universe  with  his  ration- 
alistic notion  of  'the  Truth'  with  a  big  T,  and 
what  progress  do  they  make?  Truth,  law, 
and  language  fairly  boil  away  from  them  at 
the  least  touch  of  novel  fact.  These  things  make 
themselves  as  we  go.  Our  rights,  wrongs,  pro- 
hibitions, penalties,  words,  forms,  idioms,  be- 
liefs, are  so  many  new  creations  that  add 
themselves  as  fast  as  history  proceeds.  Far 
from  being  antecedent  principles  that  animate 
the  process,  law,  language,  truth  are  but  ab- 
stract names  for  its  results. 

Laws  and  languages  at  any  rate  are  thus  seen 
to  be  man-made  things.  Mr.  Schiller  applies 
the  analogy  to  beliefs,  and  proposes  the  name 
of  *  Humanism'  for  the  doctrine  that  to  an  un- 
ascertainable  extent  our  truths  are  man-made 
products  too.  Human  motives  sharpen  all  our 
questions,  human  satisfactions  lurk  in  all  our 
answers,  all  our  formulas  have  a  human  twist. 
This  element  is  so  inextricable  in  the  products 
that  Mr.  Schiller  sometimes  seems  almost  to 
leave  it  an  open  question  whether  there  be 

242 


PRAGMATISM    AND    HUMANISM 

anything  else.  "The  world,"  he  says,  *'is  es- 
sentially vkr],  it  is  what  we  make  it.  It  is  fruit- 
less to  define  it  by  what  it  originally  was  or  by 
what  it  is  apart  from  us ;  it  is  what  is  made  of 
it.  Hence  .  .  .  the  worldis  plastic.''  ^  He  adds 
that  we  can  learn  the  limits  of  the  plasticity 
only  by  trying,  and  that  we  ought  to  start  as  if 
it  were  wholly  plastic,  acting  methodically  on 
that  assumption,  and  stopping  only  when  we 
are  decisively  rebuked. 

This  is  Mr.  Schiller's  butt-end-foremost 
statement  of  the  humanist  position,  and  it 
has  exposed  him  to  severe  attack.  I  mean  to 
defend  the  humanist  position  in  this  lecture,  so 
I  will  insinuate  a  few  remarks  at  this  point. 

Mr.  Schiller  admits  as  emphatically  as  any 
one  the  presence  of  resisting  factors  in  every 
actual  experience  of  truth-making,  of  which 
the  new^-made  special  truth  must  take  account, 
and  with  which  it  has  perforce  to  'agree.'  All 
our  truths  are  beliefs  about  'Reality';  and  in 
any  particular  belief  the  reality  acts  as  some- 
thing independent,  as  a  thing  found,  not  manu- 

*  Personal  Idealism,  p.  60. 
243 


PRAGMATISM 

factured.    Let  me  here  recall  a  bit  of  my  last 
lecture. 

'Reality'  is  in  general  what  truths  have  to 
take  account  of;  ^  and  the  first  part  of  reality 

I;  from  this  point  of  view  is  the  flux  of  our  sensa- 
tions. Sensations  are  forced  upon  us,  coming 
we  know  not  whence.  Over  their  nature,  order 
and  quantity  we  have  as  good  as  no  control. 

I  T/i^?/are  neither  true  nor  false;  they  simply  ar^. 
It  is  only  what  we  say  about  them,  only  the 
names  we  give  them,  our  theories  of  their  source 
and  nature  and  remote  relations,  that  may  be 
true  or  not. 

The  second  part  of  reality,  as  something  that 
our  beliefs  must  also  obediently  take  account 
of  is  iherelations  that  obtain  between  our  sensa- 
tions or  between  their  copies  in  our  minds. 
This  part  falls  into  two  sub-parts:  1)  the  rela- 
tions that  are  mutable  and  accidental,  as  those 
of  date  and  place ;  and  2)  those  that  are  fixed 
and  essential  because  they  are  grounded  on  the 
inner  natures  of  their  terms.  Both  sorts  of  rela- 

^  Mr.  Taylor  in  his  Elements  of  Metaphysics  uses  this  excellent 
pragmatic  definition. 

244 


PRAGMATISM    AND    HUMANISM 

tionare  matters  of  immediate  perception.  Both 
are  '  facts. '  But  it  is  the  latter  kind  of  fact  that 
forms  the  more  important  sub-part  of  reality 
for  our  theories  of  knowledge.  Inner  relations 
namely  are  'eternal,'  are  perceived  whenever 
their  sensible  terms  are  compared ;  and  of  them 
our  thought — mathematical  and  logical  thought 
so-called  —  must  eternally  take  account. 

The  third  part  of  reality,  additional  to  these  p 
perceptions  (tho  largely  based  upon  them),  is  y 
the  previous  truths  of  which  every  new  inquiry 
takes  account.  This  third  part  is  a  much  less 
obdurately  resisting  factor:  it  often  ends  by 
giving  way.  In  speaking  of  these  three  por- 
tions of  reality  as  at  all  times  controlling  our 
belief's  formation,  I  am  only  reminding  you  of 
what  we  heard  in  our  last  hour. 

Now  however  fixed  these  elements  of  real- 
ity may  be,  we  still  have  a  certain  freedom  in 
our  dealings  with  them.  Take  our  sensations. 
That  they  are  is  undoubtedly  beyond  our  con- 
trol; but  which  we  attend  to,  note,  and  make 
emphatic  in  our  conclusions  depends  on  our 
own  interests;    and,  according  as  we  lay  the 

245 


PRAGMATISM 

emphasis  here  or  there,  quite  different  formu- 
lations of  truth  result.  We  read  the  same  facts 
differently.  *  Waterloo/  with  the  same  fixed  de- 
tails, spells  a  'victory'  for  an  Englishman;  for 
p  a  Frenchman  it  spells  a  *  defeat.'  So,  for  an 
I  optimist  philosopher  the  universe  spells  victory, 
for  a  pessimist,  defeat. 

What  we  say  about  reality  thus  depends  on 
the  perspective  into  which  we  throw  it.  The 
that  of  it  is  its  own ;  but  the  what  depends  on 
the  which;  and  the  which  depends  on  us.  Both 
the  sensational  and  the  relational  parts  of  real- 
ity are  dumb;  they  say  absolutely  nothing 
about  themselves.  We  it  is  who  have  to  speak 
for  them.  This  dumbness  of  sensations  has  led 
such  intellectualists  as  T.  H.  Green  and  Ed- 
ward Caird  to  shove  them  almost  beyond  the 
pale  of  philosophic  recognition,  but  pragma- 
tists  refuse  to  go  so  far.  A  sensation  is  rather 
like  a  client  who  has  given  his  case  to  a  lawyer 
and  then  has  passively  to  listen  in  the  court- 
room to  whatever  account  of  his  affairs,  pleas- 
ant or  unpleasant,  the  lawyer  finds  it  most 

expedient  to  give. 

246 


PRAGMATISM    AND    HUMANISM 

Hence,  even  in  the  field  of  sensation,  our 
minds  exert  a  certain  arbitrary  choice.  By  our 
inclusions  and  omissions  we  trace  the  field's  ex- 
tent; by  our  emphasis  we  mark  its  foreground 
and  its  background;  by  our  order  we  read  it 
in  this  direction  or  in  that.  We  receive  in  short 
the  block  of  marble,  but  we  carve  the  statue 
ourselves. 

This  applies  to  the  'eternal'  parts  of  reality 
as  well :  we  shuffle  our  perceptions  of  intrinsic 
relation  and  arrange  them  just  as  freely.  We 
read  them  in  one  serial  order  or  another,  class 
them  in  this  way  or  in  that,  treat  one  or  the 
other  as  more  fundamental,  until  our  beliefs 
about  them  form  those  bodies  of  truth  known 
as  logics,  geometries,  or  arithmetics,  in  each 
and  all  of  which  the  form  and  order  in  which 
the  whole  is  cast  is  flagrantly  man-made. 

Thus,  to  say  nothing  of  the  new  facts  which 
men  add  to  the  matter  of  reality  by  the  acts  of 
their  own  lives,  they  have  already  impressed 
their  mental  forms  on  that  whole  third  of  real- 
ity which  I  have  called  'previous  truths.'  Every 
hour  brings  its  new  percepts,  its  own  facts  of 

247 


PRAGMATISM 

sensation  and  relation,  to  be  truly  taken  ac- 
count of;  but  the  whole  of  our  past  dealings 
with  such  facts  is  already  funded  in  the  previ- 
ous truths.  It  is  therefore  only  the  smallest  and 
recentest  fraction  of  the  first  two  parts  of  real- 
ity that  comes  to  us  without  the  human  touch, 
and  that  fraction  has  immediately  to  become 
humanized  in  the  sense  of  being  squared,  as- 
similated, or  in  some  way  adapted,  to  the 
humanized  mass  already  there.  As  a  matter 
of  fact  we  can  hardly  take  in  an  impression  at 
all,  in  the  absence  of  a  preconception  of  what 
impressions  there  may  possibly  be. 

When  we  talk  of  reality  'independent'  of 
human  thinking,  then,  it  seems  a  thing  very 
hard  to  find.  It  reduces  to  the  notion  of  what 
is  just  entering  into  experience  and  yet  to  be 
named,  or  else  to  some  imagined  aboriginal 
presence  in  experience,  before  any  belief  about 
the  presence  had  arisen,  before  any  human  con- 
ception had  been  applied.  It  is  what  is  abso- 
lutely dumb  and  evanescent,  the  merely  ideal 
limit  of  our  minds.  We  may  glimpse  it,  but  we 
never  grasp  it;  what  we  grasp  is  always  some 

248 


PRAGMATISM    AND    HUMANISM 

substitute  for  it  which  previous  human  think- 
ing has  peptonized  and  cooked  for  our  con- 
sumption. If  so  vulgar  an  expression  were 
allowed  us,  we  might  say  that  wherever  we  find 
it,  it  has  been  already  faked.  This  is  what  ]Mr, 
Schiller  has  in  mind  when  he  calls  independent 
reality  a  mere  unresisting  vXrjy  which  is  only 
to  be  made  over  by  us. 

That  is  Mr.  Schiller's  belief  about  the  sen- 
sible core  of  reality.  We  *  encounter'  it  (in 
Mr.  Bradley's  words)  but  don't  possess  it.  Su- 
perficially this  sounds  like  Kant's  view;  but 
between  categories  fulminated  before  nature 
began,  and  categories  gradually  forming  them- 
selves in  nature's  presence,  the  whole  chasm 
between  rationalism  and  empiricism  yawns. 
To  the  genuine  'Kantianer'  Schiller  will  al- 
ways be  to  Kant  as  a  satyr  to  Hyperion. 

Other  pragmatists  may  reach  more  positive 
beliefs  about  the  sensible  core  of  reality.  They 
may  think  to  get  at  it  in  its  independent  na- 
ture, by  peeling  off  the  successive  man-made 
wrappings.   They  may  make  theories  that  tell  j 

us  where  it  comes  from  and  all  about  it;  and  f 

249 


( 


TRAGMATISM 

if  these  theories  work  satisfactorily  they  will  be 
true.  The  transcendental  idealists  say  there  is 
no  core,  the  finally  completed  wrapping  being 
reality  and  truth  in  one.  Scholasticism  still 
teaches  that  the  core  is  'matter.'  Professor 
Bergson,  Heymans,  Strong,  and  others  believe 
in  the  core  and  bravely  try  to  define  it.  Messrs. 
Dewey  and  Schiller  treat  it  as  a  *  limit.'  Which 
is  the  truer  of  all  these  diverse  accounts,  or  of 
others  comparable  with  them,  unless  it  be  the 
one  that  finally  proves  the  most  satisfactory.^ 
On  the  one  hand  there  will  stand  reality,  on  the 
other  an  account  of  it  which  it  proves  impos- 
sible to  better  or  to  alter.  If  the  impossibility 
prove  permanent,  the  truth  of  the  account  will 
be  absolute.  Other  content  of  truth  than  this 
I  can  find  nowhere.  If  the  anti-pragmatists 
have  any  other  meaning,  let  them  for  heaven's 
sake  reveal  it,  let  them  grant  us  access  to  it! 
Not  being  reality,  but  only  our  belief  about 
reality,  it  will  contain  human  elements,  but 
these  will  know  the  non-human  element,  in  the 
only  sense  in  which  there  can  be  knowledge  of 
anything.    Does  the  river  make  its  banks,  or 

250 


PRAGMATISM    AND    HUMANISM 

do  the  banks  make  the  river?  Does  a  man 
walk  with  his  right  leg  or  with  his  left  leg  more 
essentially?  Just  as  impossible  may  it  be  to 
separate  the  real  from  the  human  factors  in  the 
growth  of  our  cognitive  experience. 

Let  this  stand  as  a  first  brief  indication  of 
the  humanistic  position.  Does  it  seem  para- 
doxical ?  If  so,  I  will  try  to  make  it  plausible 
by  a  few  illustrations,  which  w^ill  lead  to  a 
fuller  acquaintance  with  the  subject. 

In  many  familiar  objects  every  one  will  re- 
cognize the  human  element.  We  conceive  a 
given  reality  in  this  way  or  in  that,  to  suit  our 
purpose,  and  the  reality  passively  submits  to 
the  conception.  You  can  take  the  number  27 
as  the  cube  of  3,  or  as  the  product  of  3  and  9, 
or  as  26  jplus  l,or  100  minus  73,  or  in  countless 
other  ways,  of  which  one  will  be  just  as  true  as 
another.  You  can  take  a  chess-board  as  black 
squares  on  a  white  ground,  or  as  white  squares 
on  a  black  ground,  and  neither  conception  is 
a  false  one. 

You  can  treat  the  adjoined  figure  as  a  star,  as 
two  big  triangles  crossing  each  other,  as  a  hexa- 

251 


PRAGMATISM 

gon  with  legs  set  up  on  its  angles,  as  six  equal 
triangles  hanging  together  by  their  tips,  etc. 
All  these  treatments  are  true 
treatments  —  the  sensible  that 
upon  the  paper  resists  no  one 
of  them.  You  can  say  of  a  line 
that  it  runs  east,  or  you  can  say 
that  it  runs  west,  and  the  line  per  se  accepts 
both  descriptions  without  rebelling  at  the  in- 
consistency. 

We  carve  out  groups  of  stars  in  the  heavens, 
and  call  them  constellations,  and  the  stars 
patiently  suffer  us  to  do  so,  —  though  if  they 
knew  what  we  were  doing,  some  of  them  might 
feel  much  surprised  at  the  partners  we  had 
given  them.  We  name  the  same  constellation 
diversely,  as  Charles's  Wain,  the  Great  Bear,  or 
the  Dipper.  None  of  the  names  will  be  false, 
and  one  will  be  as  true  as  another,  for  all  are 
applicable. 

In  all  these  cases  we  humanly  make  an  ad- 
dition to  some  sensible  reality,  and  that  reality 
tolerates  the  addition.  All  the  additions  '  agree' 
with  the  reality;  they  fit  it,  while  they  build  it 

2o2 


PRAGMATISM   AND    HUMANISM 

out.  No  one  of  them  is  false.  Which  may  be 
treated  as  the  viore  true,  depends  altogether  on 
the  human  use  of  it.  If  the  27  is  a  number  of 
dollars  which  I  find  in  a  drawer  w^here  I  had 
left  28,  it  is  28  minus  1.  If  it  is  the  number  of 
inches  in  a  board  which  I  wish  to  insert  as  a 
shelf  into  a  cupboard  26  inches  wide,  it  is  26 
plus  1.  If  I  wish  to  ennoble  the  heavens  by 
the  constellations  I  see  there, '  Charles's  Wain' 
would  be  more  true  than  *  Dipper.'  My  friend 
Frederick  Myers  was  humorously  indignant 
that  that  prodigious  star-group  should  remind 
us  Americans  of  nothing  but  a  culinary  utensil. 
W  hat  shall  we  call  a  thing  anyhow  ?  It  seems 
quite  arbitrary,  for  we  carve  out  everything, 
just  as  we  carve  out  constellations,  to  suit  our 
human  purposes.  For  me,  this  whole  'audi- 
ence' is  one  thing,  which  grows  now  restless, 
now  attentive.  I  have  no  use  at  present  for  its 
individual  units,  so  I  don't  consider  them.  So 
of  an  'army,'  of  a  'nation.'  But  in  your  own 
eyes,  ladies  and  gentlemen,  to  call  you  'audi- 
ence' is  an  accidental  w^ay  of  taking  you.  The 
permanently  real  things  for  you  are  your  indi- 

253 


PRAGMATISM 

vidua!  persons.  To  an  anatomist,  again,  those 
persons  are  but  organisms,  and  the  real  things 
are  the  organs.  Not  the  organs,  so  much  as 
their  constituent  cells,  say  the  histologists ; 
not  the  cells,  but  their  molecules,  say  in  turn 
the  chemists. 

We  break  the  flux  of  sensible  reality  int<? 
things,  then,  at  our  will.  We  create  the  sub- 
jects of  our  true  as  well  as  of  our  false  pro- 
positions. 

We  create  the  predicates  also.  Many  of  the 
predicates  of  things  express  only  the  relations 
of  the  things  to  us  and  to  our  feelings.  Such 
predicates  of  course  are  human  additions. 
Caesar  crossed  the  Rubicon,  and  was  a  menace 
to  Rome's  freedom.  He  is  also  an  American 
schoolroom  pest,  made  into  one  by  the  reaction 
of  our  schoolboys  on  his  waitings.  The  added 
predicate  is  as  true  of  him  as  the  earlier  ones. 

You  see  how  naturally  one  comes  to  the 
humanistic  principle:  you  can't  weed  out  the 
human  contribution.  Our  nouns  and  adjectives 
are  all  humanized  heirlooms,  and  in  the  theories 
we  build  them  into,  the  inner  order  and  ar- 

254 


PRAGMATISM    AND    HUMANISM 

rangement  is  wholly  dictated  by  human  con- 
siderations, intellectual  consistency  being  one 
of  them.  Mathematics  and  lo^ric  themselves 
are  fermenting  with  human  rearrangements; 
physics,  astronomy  and  biology  follow  massive 
cues  of  preference.  AYe  plunge  forward  into  f^' 
the  field  of  fresh  experience  with  the  beliefs 
our  ancestors  and  we  have  made  already; 
these  determine  what  we  notice;  what  we 
notice  determines  what  we  do;  what  we  do 
again  determines  what  we  experience ;  so  from 
one  thing  to  another,  altho  the  stubborn  fact 
remains  that  there  is  a  sensible  flux,  what  is 
true  of  it  seems  from  first  to  last  to  be  largely 
a  matter  of  our  own  creation. 

We  build  the  flux  out  inevitably.  The  great 
question  is:  does  it,  with  our  additions,  rise  or 
fall  in  value  ?  Are  the  additions  worthy  or  un- 
worthy ?  Suppose  a  universe  composed  of  seven 
stars,  and  nothing  else  but  three  human  wit- 
nesses and  their  critic.  One  witness  names  the 
stars  '  Great  Bear ' ;  one  calls  them  *  Charles's 
Wain';  one  calls  them  the  *Dipper.'  Which 
human  addition  has  made  the  best  universe  of 

255 


PRAGMATISM 

the  given  stellar  material  ?  If  Frederick  Myers 
were  the  critic,  he  would  have  no  hesitation  in 
*  turning  down'  the  American  witness. 

Lotze  has  in  several  places  made  a  deep  sug- 
gestion. We  naively  assume,  he  says,  a  relation 
between  reality  and  our  minds  which  may  be 
just  the  opposite  of  the  true  one.  Reality,  we 
naturally  think,  stands  ready-made  and  com- 
plete, and  our  intellects  supervene  with  the  one 
simple  duty  of  describing  it  as  it  is  already. 
But  may  not  our  descriptions,  Lotze  asks,  be 
themselves  important  additions  to  reality.^ 
And  may  not  previous  reality  itself  be  there, 
far  less  for  the  purpose  of  reappearing  unal- 
tered in  our  knowledge,  than  for  the  very  pur- 
pose of  stimulating  our  minds  to  such  additions 
as  shall  enhance  the  universe's  total  value.  'Die 
erhohung  des  vorgefundenen  daseins^  is  a 
phrase  used  by  Professor  Eucken  somewhere, 
which  reminds  one  of  this  suggestion  by  the 
great  Lotze. 

^It  is  identically  our  pragmatistic  conception. 
In  our  cognitive  as  well  as  in  our  active  life  we 
are  creative.  We  add,  both  to  the  subject  and 

253 


PRAGMATISM    AND    HUMANISM 

to  the  predicate  part  of  reality.    The  world      f 
stands  really  malleable,  waiting  to  receive  its 
final  touches  at  our  hands.   Like  the  kingdom 
of  heaven,  it  suffers  human  violence  willingly. 
Man  engenders  truths  upon  it.  / 

No  one  can  deny  that  such  a  role  would  add 
both  to  our  dignity  and  to  our  responsibility 
as  thinkers.  To  some  of  us  it  proves  a  most 
inspiring  notion.  Signore  Papini,  the  leader  of 
Italian  pragmatism,  grows  fairly  dithyrambic 
over  the  view  that  it  opens  of  man's  divinely- 
creative  functions. 

The  import  of  the  difference  between  prag-  | 
matism  and  rationalism  is  now  in  sight  through- 
out its  whole  extent.  The  essential  contrast  is 
that  for  rationalism  reality  is  ready-made  and 
complete  from  all  eternity,  while  for  pragma- 
tism it  is  still  in  the  making,  and  awaits  part  of 
its  complexion  from  the  future.  On  the  one  side 
the  universe  is  absolutely  secure,  on  the  other 
it  is  still  pursuing  its  adventures.   ^  [ 

\Ye  have  got  into  rather  deep  water  with  this 
humanistic  view,  and  it  is  no  wonder  that  mis- 
understanding gathers  round  it.    It  is  accused 

257 


PRAGMATISM 

of  being  a  doctrine  of  caprice.  Mr.  Bradley, 
for  example,  says  that  a  humanist,  if  he  under- 
stood his  own  doctrine,  would  have  to  *hold 
any  end,  however  perverted,  to  be  rational,  if 
I  insist  on  it  personally,  and  any  idea,  however 
mad,  to  be  the  truth  if  only  some  one  is  resolved 
that  he  will  have  it  so.'  The  humanist  view  of 
'reality,'  as  something  resisting,  yet  malleable, 
which  controls  our  thinking  as  an  energy  that 
must  be  taken  *  account'  of  incessantly  (tho 
not  necessarily  merely  copied)  is  evidently  a 
diflScult  one  to  introduce  to  novices.  The  situ- 
ation reminds  me  of  one  that  I  have  personally 
gone  through.  I  once  wrote  an  essay  on  our 
right  to  believe,  which  I  unluckily  called  the 
Will  to  Believe.  All  the  critics,  neglecting  the 
essay,  pounced  upon  the  title.  Psychologically 
it  was  impossible,  morally  it  was  iniquitous. 
The  'will  to  deceive,'  the  'will  to  make- 
believe,'  were  wittily  proposed  as  substitutes 
for  it. 

The  alternative  between  pragmatism  and  ra- 
tionalism, in  the  shape  in  which  we  noxc  have 
ii  before  us,  is  no  longer  a  question  in  the  theory 

258 


PRAGMATISM    AND    HUMANISM 

of  knowledge^  it  concerns  the  structure  of  the  uni* 
verse  itself. 

On  the  pragmatist  side  we  have  only  one     I 
edition  of  the  universe,  unfinished,  growing  in     | 
all  sorts  of  places,  especially  in  the  places  where     \- 
thinking  beings  are  at  work. 

On  the  rationalist  side  we  have  a  universe  in 
many  editions,  one  real  one,  the  infinite  folio,  or 
edition  de  luxe,  eternally  complete;  and  then 
the  various  finite  editions,  full  of  false  readings, 
distorted  and  mutilated  each  in  its  own  way. 

So  the  rival  metaphysical  hypotheses  of  plu- 
ralism and  monism  here  come  back  upon  us. 
I  will  develope  their  differences  during  the 
remainder  of  our  hour. 

/And  first  let  me  say  that  it  is  impossible  not 
to  see  a  temperamental  difference  at  work  in 
the  choice  of  sides.  The  rationalist  mind,  radi- 
cally taken,  is  of  a  doctrinaire  and  authorita- 
tive complexion:  the  phrase  'must  be'  is  ever 
on  its  lips.  The  bellyband  of  its  universe  must 
be  tight.  A  radical  pragmatist  on  the  other 
hand  is  a  happy-go-lucky  anarchistic  sort  of 
creature.   If  he  had  to  live  in  a  tub  like  Dio- 

259 


vft. 


PRAGMATISM 

genes  he  wouldn't  mind  at  all  if  the  hoops  were 
loose  and  the  staves  let  in  the  sun. 

Now  the  idea  of  this  loose  universe  affects 
your  typical  rationalists  in  much  the  same  way 
as  'freedom  of  the  press'  might  affect  a  veteran 
official  in  the  Russian  bureau  of  censorship;  or 
as  *  simplified  spelling'  might  affect  an  elderly 
schoolmistress.  It  affects  him  as  the  swarm  of 
protestant  sects  affects  a  papist  onlooker.  It 
appears  as  backboneless  and  devoid  of  prin- 
ciple as  *  opportunism'  in  politics  appears  to  an 
old-fashioned  French  legitimist,  or  to  a  fanat- 
ical believer  in  the  divine  right  of  the  people. 

For  pluralistic  pragmatism,  truth  grows  up 
inside  of  all  the  finite  experiences.  They  lean 
on  each  other,  but  the  whole  of  them,  if  such  a 
whole  there  be,  leans  on  nothing.  All  *  homes' 
are  in  finite  experience;  finite  experience  as 
such  is  homeless.  Nothing  outside  of  the  flux 
secures  the  issue  of  it.  It  can  hope  salvation  only 
from  its  own  intrinsic  promises  and  potencies. 

To  rationalists  this  describes  a  tramp  and 
vagrant  world,  adrift  in  space,  with  neither 
elephant  nor  tortoise  to  plant  the  sole  of  its  foot 

2C0 


PRAGMATISM    AND    HUMANISM 

upon.  It  is  a  set  of  stars  hurled  into  heaven 
without  even  a  centre  of  gravity  to  pull  against. 
In  other  spheres  of  life  it  is  true  that  we  have 
got  used  to  living  in  a  state  of  relative  insecur- 
ity. The  authority  of  *  the  State,'  and  that  of  an 
absolute  'moral  law,'  have  resolved  themselves 
into  expediencies,  and  holy  church  has  resolved 
itself  into  *  meeting-houses.'  Not  so  as  yet 
within  the  philosophic  classrooms.  A  universe 
with  such  as  us  contributing  to  create  its  truth, 
a  world  delivered  to  our  opportunisms  and  our 
private  judgments!  Home-rule  for  Ireland 
would  be  a  millennium  in  comparison.  ^Ye're 
no  more  fit  for  such  a  part  than  the  Filipinos 
are  *fit  for  self-government.'  Such  a  world 
would  not  be  respectable  philosophically.  It 
is  a  trunk  w^ithout  a  tag,  a  dog  without  a  collar 
in  the  eyes  of  most  professors  of  philosophy. 

What  then  would  tighten  this  loose  universe, 
according  to  the  professors  ? 

Something  to  support  the  finite  many,  to  tie 
it  to,  to  unify  and  anchor  it.  Something  un- 
exposed to  accident,  something  eternal  and  un- 
alterable.  The  mutable  in  experience  must  be 

261 


PRAGMATISM 

founded  on  immutability.  Behind  our  de  facto 
world,  our  world  in  act,  there  must  be  a  de  jure 
duplicate  fixed  and  previous,  with  all  that  can 
happen  here  already  there  in  posse,  every  drop 
of  blood,  every  smallest  item,  appointed  and 
provided,  stamped  and  branded,  without  chance 
of  variation.  The  negatives  that  haunt  our 
ideals  here  below  must  be  themselves  negated 
in  the  absolutely  Real.  This  alone  makes  the 
universe  solid.  This  is  the  resting  deep.  We 
live  upon  the  stormy  surface;  but  with  this 
our  anchor  holds,  for  it  grapples  rocky  bottom. 
This  is  Wordsworth's  'eternal  peace  abiding 
at  the  heart  of  endless  agitation.'  This  is 
Vivekananda's  mystic  One  of  which  I  read 
to  you.  This  is  Reality  with  the  big  R,  reality 
that  makes  the  timeless  claim,  reality  to  which 
defeat  can't  happen.  This  is  what  the  men  of 
principles,  and  in  general  all  the  men  whom 
I  called  tender-minded  in  my  first  lecture, 
think  themselves  obliged  to  postulate. 

And  this,  exactly  this,  is  what  the  tough- 
minded  of  that  lecture  find  themselves  moved 
to  call  a  piece  of  perverse  abstraction-worship. 

262 


PRAGMATISM    AND    HUMANISM 

The  tough-minded  are  the  men  whose  alpha 
and  omega  are  facts.  Behind  the  bare  pheno- 
menal facts,  as  my  tough-minded  old  friend 
Chaunccy  Wright,  the  great  Harvard  empiri- 
cist of  my  youth,  used  to  say,  there  is  nothing. 
When  a  rationalist  insists  that  behind  the  facts 
there  is  the  ground  of  the  facts,  the  possibility 
of  the  facts,  the  tougher  empiricists  accuse  him 
of  taking  the  mere  name  and  nature  of  a  fact 
and  clapping  it  behind  the  fact  as  a  duplicate 
entity  to  make  it  possible.    That  such  sham 
grounds  are  often  invoked  is  notorious.   At  a 
surgical  operation  I  once  heard  a  bystander  ask 
a  doctor  why  the  patient  breathed  so  deeply. 
*  Because  ether  is  a  respiratory  stimulant,'  the 
doctor  answered.   'Ah!'  said  the  questioner, 
as  if  that  were  a  good  explanation.  But  this 
is  like  saying  that  cyanide  of  potassium  kills 
because  it  is  a  'poison,'  or  that  it  is  so  cold     j 
to-night  because  it  is  '  winter,'  or  that  we  have    -| 
five   fingers    because  we   are    'pentadactyls.' 
These  are  but  names  for  the  facts,  taken  from  j 
the  facts,  and  then  treated  as  previous  and 
explanatory.   The  tender-minded  notion  of  aa 

263 


PRAGMATISM 

absolute  reality  is,  according  to  the  radically 
tough-minded,  framed  on  just  this  pattern.  It 
is  but  our  summarizing  name  for  the  whole 
spread-out  and  strung-along  mass  of  pheno- 
mena, treated  as  if  it  were  a  different  entity, 
both  one  and  previous. 

You  see  how  differently  people  take  things. 
The  ^\orld  we  live  in  exists  diffused  and  dis- 
tributed, in  the  form  of  an  indefinitely  numer- 
ous lot  of  eaches,  coherent  in  all  sorts  of  ways 
and  degrees;  and  the  tough-minded  are  per- 
fectly willing  to  keep  them  at  that  valuation. 
They  can  stand  that  kind  of  world,  their  tem- 
per being  well  adapted  to  its  insecurity.  Not 
so  the  tender-minded  party.  They  must  back 
the  world  we  find  ourselves  born  into  by  'an- 
other and  a  better'  w^orld  in  which  the  caches 
form  an  All  and  the  All  a  One  that  logically 
presupposes,  co-implicates,  and  secures  each 
each  without  exception. 

Must  we  as  pragmatists  be  radically  tough- 
minded  ?  or  can  we  treat  the  absolute  edition 
of  the  world  as  a  legitimate  hypothesis  ?  It  is 
certainly  legitimate,  for  it  is  thinkable,  whether 

264 


PRAGMATISM    AND    HUMANISM 

we  take  it  in  its  abstract  or  in  its  concrete 
shape. 

By  taking  it  abstractly  I  mean  placing  it  be- 
hind our  finite  life  as  we  place  the  word  *  win- 
ter' behind  to-night's  cold  weather.  'AVinter' 
is  only  the  name  for  a  certain  number  of  days 
which  we  find  generally  characterized  by  cold 
weather,  but  it  guarantees  nothing  in  that  line, 
for  our  thermometer  to-morrow  may  soar  into 
the  70 's.  Nevertheless  the  word  is  a  useful  one 
to  plunge  forward  with  into  the  stream  of  our 
experience.  It  cuts  off  certain  probabilities 
and  sets  up  others.  You  can  put  away  your 
straw  hats;  you  can  unpack  your  arctics.  It 
is  a  summary  of  things  to  look  for.  It  names 
a  part  of  nature's  habits,  and  gets  you  ready  for 
their  continuation.  It  is  a  definite  instrument 
abstracted  from  experience,  a  conceptual  real- 
ity that  you  must  take  account  of,  and  which 
reflects  you  totally  back  into  sensible  realities. 
The  pragmatist  is  the  last  person  to  deny  the 
reality  of  such  abstractions.  They  are  so  much 
past  experience  funded. 

But  taking  the  absolute  edition  of  the  world 

265 


PRAGMATISM 

concretely  means  a  different  hypothesis.  Ra- 
tionalists take  it  concretely  and  oppose  it  to 
the  world's  finite  editions.  They  give  it  a  par- 
ticular nature.  It  is  perfect,  finished.  Every- 
thing known  there  is  known  along  with  every- 
thing else;  here,  where  ignorance  reigns,  far 
otherwise.  If  there  is  want  there,  there  also 
is  the  satisfaction  provided.  Here  all  is  pro- 
cess; that  world  is  timeless.  Possibilities  ob- 
tain in  our  world;  in  the  absolute  world,  where 
all  that  is  not  is  from  eternity  impossible,  and 
all  that  is  is  necessary,  the  category  of  possi- 
bility has  no  application.  In  this  world  crimes 
and  horrors  are  regretable.  In  that  totalized 
world  regret  obtains  not,  for  'the  existence  of 
ill  in  the  temporal  order  is  the  very  condition 
of  the  perfection  of  the  eternal  order.' 

Once  more,  either  hypothesis  is  legitimate 
in  pragmatist  eyes,  for  either  has  its  uses.  Ab- 
stractly, or  taken  like  the  w^ord  winter,  as  a 
memorandum  of  past  experience  that  orients 
us  towards  the  future,  the  notion  of  the  abso- 
lute world  is  indispensable.  Concretely  taken, 
it  is  also  indispensable,  at  least  to  certain  minds, 

206 


■  flWH 


PRAGMATISM    AND    HUMANISM 

for  it  determines  them  religiously,  being  often 
a  thing  to  change  their  lives  by,  and  by  chang- 
ing their  lives,  to  change  whatever  in  the  outer 
order  depends  on  them. 

We  can  not  therefore  methodically  join  the 
tough  minds  in  their  rejection  of  the  whole 
notion  of  a  world  beyond  our  finite  experience. 
One  misunderstanding  of  pragmatism  is  to 
identify  it  with  positivistic  tough-mindedness, 
to  suppose  that  it  scorns  every  rationalistic 
notion  as  so  much  jabber  and  gesticulation, 
that  it  loves  intellectual  anarchv  as  such  and 
prefers  a  sort  of  wolf- world  absolutely  unpent 
and  wild  and  without  a  master  or  a  collar  to 
any  philosophic  classroom  product  whatsoever. 
I  have  said  so  much  in  these  lectures  against 
the  over-tender  forms  of  rationalism,  that  I  am 
prepared  for  some  misunderstanding  here,  but 
I  confess  that  the  amount  of  it  that  I  have  found 
in  this  very  audience  surprises  me,  for  I  have 
simultaneously  defended  rationalistic  hypo- 
theses, so  far  as  these  re-direct  you  fruitfully 
into  experience. 

For  instance  I  receive  this  morning  this 

267 


PRAGMATISM 

question  on  a  post-card :  *  *  Is  a  pragmatlst  neces- 
sarily a  complete  materialist  and  agnostic?" 
One  of  my  oldest  friends,  who  ought  to  know 
me  better,  writes  me  a  letter  that  accuses  the 
pragmatism  I  am  recommending  of  shutting 
out  all  wider  metaphysical  views  and  condemn- 
ing us  to  the  most  terre-a-terre  naturalism.  Let 
me  read  you  some  extracts  from  it. 

"It  seems  to  me,"  my  friend  writes,  **that 
the  pragmatic  objection  to  pragmatism  lies  in 
the  fact  that  it  might  accentuate  the  narrow- 
ness of  narrow  minds. 

"  Your  call  to  the  rejection  of  the  namby- 
pamby  and  the  wishy-washy  is  of  course  in- 
spiring. But  altho  it  is  salutary  and  stim- 
ulating to  be  told  that  one  should  be  respon- 
sible for  the  immediate  issues  and  bearings  of 
his  words  and  thoughts,  I  decline  to  be  de- 
prived of  the  pleasure  and  profit  of  dwelling 
also  on  remoter  bearings  and  issues,  and  it 
is  the  tendency  of  pragmatism  to  refuse  this 
privilege. 

"In short, it  seems  to  me  that  the  limitations, 
or  rather  the  dangers,  of  the  pragmatic  tend- 

2G8 


PRAGMATISM   AND    HUMANISM 

ency,  are  analogous  to  those  which  beset  the 
unwary  followers  of  the  *  natural  sciences.' 
Chemistry  and  physics  are  eminently  prag- 
matic; and  many  of  their  devotees,  smugly 
content  with  the  data  that  their  weiirhts  and 
measures  furnish,  feel  an  infinite  pity  and 
disdain  for  all  students  of  philosophy  and  meta- 
physics whomsoever.  And  of  course  every- 
thing can  be  expressed, — after  a  fashion,  and 
*  theoretically,'  —  in  terms  of  chemistry  and 
physics,  that  is,  everything  except  the  vital  prin- 
ciple of  the  whole,  and  that,  they  say,  there  is 
no  pragmatic  use  in  trying  to  express ;  it  has  no 
bearings  —  for  them,  I  for  my  part  refuse 
to  be  persuaded  that  we  can  not  look  beyond 
the  obvious  pluralism  of  the  naturalist  and  the 
pragmatist  to  a  logical  unity  in  which  they 
take  no  interest." 

How  is  such  a  conception  of  the  pragma- 
tism I  am  advocating  possible,  after  my  first 
and  second  lectures.?  I  have  all  along  been 
offering  it  expressly  as  a  mediator  between 
tough-mindedness  and  tender-mindedness.  If 
the  notion  of  a  world  ante  rem,  whether  taken 

269 


PRAGMATISM 

abstractly  like  the  word  winter,  or  concretely 
as  the  hypothesis  of  an  Absolute,  can  be  shown 
to  have  any  consequences  whatever  for  our 
life,  it  has  a  meaning.  If  the  meaning  works, 
it  will  have  some  truth  that  ought  to  be  held 
to  through  all  possible  reformulations,  for 
pragmatism. 

The  absolutistic  hypothesis,  that  perfection 
is  eternal,  aboriginal,  and  most  real,  has  a  per- 
fectly definite  meaning,  and  it  works  relig- 
iously. To  examine  how,  will  be  the  subject 
of  my  next  and  final  lecture. 


VIII 


PRAGMATISM    AND    RELIGION 


LECTURE  VIII 
PRAGMATISM    AND    RELIGION 

At  the  close  of  the  last  lecture  I  reminded  you 
of  the  first  one,  in  which  I  had  opposed  tough- 
mindedness  to  tender-mindedness  and  recom- 
mended pragmatism  as  their  mediator.  Tough- 
mindedness  positively  rejects  tender-minded- 
ness's  hypothesis  of  an  eternal  perfect  edition 
of  the  universe  coexisting  with  our  finite  ex- 
perience. 

On  pragmatic  principles  we  can  not  reject 
any  hypothesis  if  consequences  useful  to  life 
flow  from  it.  Universal  conceptions,  as  things 
to  take  account  of,  may  be  as  real  for  prag- 
matism as  particular  sensations  are.  They 
have,  indeed,  no  meaning  and  no  reality  if 
they  have  no  use.  But  if  they  have  any  use 
they  have  that  amount  of  meaning.  And  the 
meaning  will  be  true  if  the  use  squares  well 
with  life's  other  uses. 

Well,  the  use  of  the  Absolute  is  proved  by 
the  w^hole  course  of  men's  religious  history. 
The  eternal  arms  are  then  beneath.  Remember 

273 


PRAGMATISM 

Vivekananda's  use  of  the  Atman  —  not  indeed 
a  scientific  use,  for  we  can  make  no  particular 
deductions  from  it.  It  is  emotional  and  spirit- 
ual altogether. 

It  is  always  best  to  discuss  things  by  the 
help  of  concrete  examples.  Let  me  read  there- 
fore some  of  those  verses  entitled  *To  You' 
by  Walt  Whitman  —  'You'  of  course  mean- 
ing the  reader  or  hearer  of  the  poem  whosoever 
he  or  she  may  be. 

Whoever  you  are,  now  I  place  my  hand  upon  you  that  you  be 

my  poem; 
I  whisper  with  my  lips  close  to  your  ear, 
I  have  loved  many  men  and  women  and  men,  but  I  love  none 

better  than  you. 

0  I  have  been  dilatory  and  dumb; 

1  should  have  made  my  way  to  you  long  ago; 

I  should  have  blabbed  nothing  but  you,  I  should  have  chanted 
nothing  but  you. 

I  will  leave  all  and  come  and  make  the  hymns  of  you; 

None  have  understood  you,  but  I  understand  you; 

None  have  done  justice  to  you  —  you  have  not  done  justice 
to  yourself; 

None  but  have  found  you  imperfect  —  I  only  find  no  imper- 
fection in  you. 

274. 


PRAGMATISM    AND    RELIGION 

0  I  could  sing  such  glories  and  grandeurs  about  you; 

You  have  not  known  what  you  are  —  you  have  slumbered 

upon  yourself  all  your  life; 
What  you  have  done  returns  already  in  mockeries. 

But  the  mockeries  are  not  you; 

Underneath  them  and  within  them,  I  see  you  lurk; 

1  pursue  you  where  none  else  has  pursued  you. 

Silence,  the  desk,  the  flippant  expression,  the  night,  the  ac- 
customed routine,  if  these  conceal  you  from  others, 
or  from  yourself,  they  do  not  conceal  you  from  me ; 

The  shaved  face,  the  unsteady  eye,  the  impure  complexion, 
if  these  balk  others,  they  do  not  balk  me; 

The  pert  apparel,  the  deformed  attitude,  drunkenness,  greed, 
premature  death,  all  these  I  part  aside. 

There  is  no  endowment  in  man  or  woman  that  is  not  tallied  in 

you; 
There  is  no  virtue,  no  beauty,  in  man  or  woman,  but  as  good 

is  in  you; 
No  pluck  nor  endurance  in  others,  but  as  good  is  in  you; 
No  pleasure  waiting  for  others,  but  an  equal  pleasure  waits 

for  you. 

Whoever  you  are !  claim  your  own  at  any  hazard ! 

These  shows  of  the  east  and  west  are  tame,  compared  with 

you; 
These  immense  meadows  —  these  interminable  rivers  —  you 

are  immense  and  interminable  as  they; 
275 


PRAGMATISM 

You  are  he  or  she  who  is  master  or  mistress  over  them, 
Master  or  mistress  in  your  own  right  over  Nature,  elements, 
pain,  passion,  dissolution. 

The  hopples  fall  from  your  ankles  —  you  find  an  unfailing 

suflficiency ; 
Old  or  young,  male  or  female,  rude,  low,  rejected  by  the  rest 

whatever  you  are  promulges  itself; 
Through  birth,  life,  death,  burial,  the  means  are  provided, 

nothing  is  scanted; 
Through   angers,   losses,   ambition,   ignorance,  ennui,   what 

you  are  picks  its  way. 

Verily  a  fine  and  moving  poem,  in  any  case, 
but  there  are  two  ways  of  taking  it,  both  useful. 

One  is  the  monistic  way,  the  mystical  way  of 
pure  cosmic  emotion.  The  glories  and  grand- 
eurs, they  are  yours  absolutely,  even  in  the 
midst  of  your  defacements.  Whatever  may 
happen  to  you,  whatever  you  may  appear  to  be, 
inwardly  you  are  safe.  Look  back,  lie  back, 
on  your  true  principle  of  being!  This  is  the 
famous  way  of  quietism,  of  indifferentism.  Its 
enemies  compare  it  to  a  spiritual  opium.  Yet 
pragmatism  must  respect  this  way,  for  it  has 
massive  historic  vindication. 

But  pragmatism  sees  another  way  to  be  re- 

^7G 


PRAGMATISM   AND    RELIGION 

spected  also,  the  pluralistic  way  of  interpret- 
ing the  poem.  The  you  so  glorified,  to  which 
the  hymn  is  sung,  may  mean  your  better  pos- 
sibilities phenomenally  taken,  or  the  specific 
redemptive  effects  even  of  your  failures,  upon 
yourself  or  others.  It  may  mean  your  loyalty 
to  the  possibilities  of  others  whom  you  admire 
and  love  so  that  you  are  w^illing  to  accept  your 
own  poor  life,  for  it  is  that  glory's  partner.  You 
can  at  least  appreciate,  applaud,  furnish  the 
audience,  of  so  brave  a  total  world.  Forget  the 
low  in  yourself,  then,  think  only  of  the  high. 
Identify  your  life  therewith;  then,  through 
angers,  losses,  ignorance,  ennui,  whatever  you 
thus  make  yourself,  w^hatever  you  thus  most 
deeply  are,  picks  its  way. 

In  either  w^ay  of  taking  the  poem,  it  encour- 
ages fidelity  to  ourselves.  Both  ways  satisfy; 
both  sanctify  the  human  flux.  Both  paint  the 
portrait  of  the  you  on  a  gold  background.  But 
the  background  of  the  first  way  is  the  static 
One,  while  in  the  second  way  it  means  possibles 
in  the  plural,  genuine  possibles,  and  it  has  all 
the  restlessness  of  that  conception. 

277 


PRAGMATISM 

Noble  enough  is  either  way  of  reading  the 
poem;  but  plainly  the  pluralistic  way  agrees 
with  the  pragmatic  temper  best,  for  it  immedi- 
ately suggests  an  infinitely  larger  number  of 
the  details  of  future  experience  to  our  mind. 
It  sets  definite  activities  in  us  at  work.  Altho 
this  second  way  seems  prosaic  and  earth-born 
in  comparison  with  the  first  way,  yet  no  one 
can  accuse  it  of  tough-mindedness  in  any 
brutal  sense  of  the  term.  Yet  if,  as  pragmatists, 
you  should  positively  set  up  the  second  way 
against  the  first  way,  you  would  very  likely 
be  misunderstood.  You  would  be  accused  of 
denying  nobler  conceptions,  and  of  being  an 
ally  of  tough-mindedness  in  the  worst  sense. 

You  remember  the  letter  from  a  member  of 
this  audience  from  which  I  read  some  ex- 
tracts at  our  previous  meeting.  Let  me  read 
you  an  additional  extract  now.  It  shows  a  vague- 
ness in  realizing  the  alternatives  before  us 
which  I  think  is  very  widespread. 

*'I  believe,"  writes  my  friend  and  corre- 
spondent, '*in  pluralism;  I  believe  that  in  our 
search  for  truth  we  leap  from  one  floating  cake 

278 


PRAGMATISM    AND    RELIGION 

of  ice  to  another,  on  an  infinite  sea,  and  that  by 
each  of  our  acts  we  make  new  truths  possible 
and  old  ones  impossible;  I  believe  that  each 
man  is  responsible  for  making  the  universe 
better,  and  that  if  he  does  not  do  this  it  will 
be  in  so  far  left  undone. 

"Yet  at  the  same  time  I  am  willing  to  en- 
dure that  my  children  should  be  incurably  sick 
and  suffering  (as  they  are  not)  and  I  myself 
stupid  and  yet  w^ith  brains  enough  to  see  my 
stupidity,  only  on  one  condition,  namely,  that 
through  the  construction,  in  imagination  and 
by  reasoning,  of  a  rational  unity  of  all  things, 
I  can  conceive  my  acts  and  my  thoughts  and 
my  troubles  as  supplemented  by  all  the  other 
phenomena  of  the  world,  and  as  forming  — 
when  thus  supplemented  —  a  scheme  which  I 
approve  and  adopt  as  my  own;  and  for  my  part 
I  refuse  to  be  persuaded  that  we  can  not  look 
beyond  the  obvious  pluralism  of  the  natural- 
ist and  pragmatist  to  a  logical  unity  in  which 
they  take  no  interest  or  stock." 

Such  a  fine  expression  of  personal  faith 
warms  the  heart  of  the  hearer.  But  how  much 

279 


PRAGMATISM 

does  it  clear  his  philosophic  head  ?  Does  the 
writer  consistently  favor  the  monistic,  or  the 
pluralistic,  interpretation  of  the  world's  poem? 
His  troubles  become  atoned  for  when  thus  sup- 
pleviented,  he  says,  supplemented,  that  is,  by 
all  the  remedies  that  the  other  phenomena  may 
supply.  Obviously  here  the  writer  faces  for- 
ward into  the  particulars  of  experience,  which 
he  interprets  in  a  pluralistic-melioristic  way. 

But  he  believes  himself  to  face  backward. 
He  speaks  of  what  he  calls  the  rational  unity  of 
things,  when  all  the  while  he  really  means  their 
possible  empirical  unification.  He  supposes  at 
the  same  time  that  the  pragmatist,  because  he 
criticises  rationalism's  abstract  One,  is  cut  off 
from  the  consolation  of  believing  in  the  saving 
possibilities  of  the  concrete  many.  He  fails 
in  short  to  distinguish  between  taking  the 
world's  perfection  as  a  necessary  principle,  and 
taking  it  only  as  a  possible  terminus  ad  quem. 

I  regard  the  writer  of  the  letter  as  a  genuine 
pragmatist,  but  as  a  pragmatist  sans  le  savoir. 
He  appears  to  me  as  one  of  that  numerous 
class  of  philosophic  amateurs  whom  I  spoke  of 

280 


PRAGMATISM    AND    RELIGION 

in  my  first  lecture,  as  wishing  to  have  all  the 
good  things  going,  without  being  too  careful 
as  to  how  they  agree  or  disagree.  'Rational 
unity  of  all  things'  is  so  inspiring  a  formula, 
that  he  brandishes  it  off-hand,  and  abstractly 
accuses  pluralism  of  conflicting  with  it  (for  the 
bare  names  do  conflict),  altho  concretely  he 
means  by  it  just  the  pragmatistically  unified 
and  ameliorated  world.  Most  of  us  remain  in 
this  essential  vagueness,  and  it  is  well  that  we 
should ;  but  in  the  interest  of  clearheadedness 
it  is  well  that  some  of  us  should  go  farther,  so 
I  will  try  now  to  focus  a  little  more  discrim- 
inatingly on  this  particular  religious  point. 

Is  then  this  you  of  yous,  this  absolutely  real 
world,  this  unity  that  yields  the  moral  inspira- 
tion and  has  the  religious  value,  to  be  taken 
monistically  or  pluralistically.^  Is  it  ante  rem 
or  in  rebus  ?  Is  it  a  principle  or  an  end,  an  ab- 
solute or  an  ultimate,  a  first  or  a  last  ?  Does  it 
make  you  look  forward  or  lie  back  ?  It  is  cer- 
tainly worth  w^hile  not  to  clump  the  two  things 
together,  for  if  discriminated,  they  have  de- 
cidedly diverse  meanings  for  life. 

281 


PRAGMATISM 

^Please  observe  that  the  whole  dilemma  re- 
volves pragmatically  about  the  notion  of  the 
world's  possibilities.  Intellectually,  rationalism 
invokes  its  absolute  principle  of  unity,  as  a 
ground  of  possibility  for  the  many  facts.  Emo- 
tionally, it  sees  it  as  a  container  and  limiter  of 
possibilities,  a  guarantee  that  the  upshot  shall  be 
good.  Taken  in  this  way,  the  absolute  makes 
all  good  things  certain,  and  all  bad  things  im- 
possible (in  the  eternal,  namely),  and  may  be 
said  to  transmute  the  entire  category  of  possi- 
bility into  categories  more  secure.  One  sees 
at  this  point  that  the  great  religious  difference 
lies  betw^een  the  men  who  insist  that  the  world 
must  and  shall  be,  and  those  who  are  contented 
with  believing  that  the  w^orld  viay  be,  saved. 
The  whole  clash  of  rationalistic  and  empiricist 
religion  is  thus  over  the  validity  of  possibility. 
It  is  necessary  therefore  to  begin  by  focusing 
upon  that  word.  What  may  the  word  *  possible ' 
definitely  mean  ?  To  unreflecting  men  it  means 
a  sort  of  third  estate  of  being,  less  real  than 
existence,  more  real  than  non-existence,  a  twi- 
light realm,  a  hybrid  status,  a  limbo  into  which 

282 


PRAGMATISM    AND    RELIGION 

and  out  of  which  realities  ever  and  anon  are 
made  to  pass.  / 

Such  a  conception  is  of  course  too  vague 
and  nondescript  to  satisfy  us.  Here,  as  else- 
where, the  only  way  to  extract  a  term's  mean- 
ing is  to  use  the  pragmatic  method  on  it.  AYhen 
you  say  that  a  thing  is  possible,  what  difference 
does  it  make  ?  It  makes  at  least  this  difference 
that  if  any  one  calls  it  impossible  you  can  con- 
tradict him,  if  any  one  calls  it  actual  you  can 
contradict  him,  and  if  any  one  calls  it  neces- 
sary you  can  contradict  him  too. 

But  these  privileges  of  contradiction  don't 
amount  to  much.  When  you  say  a  thing  is 
possible,  does  not  that  make  some  farther 
difference  in  terms  of  actual  fact.^ 

It  makes  at  least  this  negative  difference  that 
if  the  statement  be  true,  it  follows  that  there 
is  nothing  extant  capable  of  preventing  the  pos- 
sible thing.  The  absence  of  real  grounds  of 
interference  may  thus  be  said  to  make  things 
not  impossible,  possible  therefore  in  the  bare  or 
abstract  sense. 

,   But  most  possibles  are  not  bare,  they  are 

283 


PRAGMATISM 

concretely  grounded,  or  well-grounded,  as  we 
say.  What  does  this  mean  pragmatically?  It 
means  not  only  that  there  are  no  preventive 
conditions  present,  but  that  some  of  the  con- 
ditions of  production  of  the  possible  thing 
actually  are  here.  Thus  a  concretely  possible 
Aicken  means:  (1)  that  the  idea  of  chicken 
contains  no  essential  self-contradiction ;  (2) 
that  no  boys,  skunks,  or  other  enemies  are 
about ;  and  (3)  that  at  least  an  actual  egg 
exists.  Possible  chicken  means  actual  egg  — 
plus  actual  sitting  hen,  or  incubator,  or  what 
not.  As  the  actual  conditions  approach  com- 
pleteness the  chicken  becomes  a  better-and- 
better-grounded  possibility.  When  the  con- 
ditions are  entirely  complete,  it  ceases  to  be 
a  possibility,  and  turns  into  an  actual  fact. 

Let  us  apply  this  notion  to  the  salvation  of 
the  world.  What  does  it  pragmatically  mean 
to  say  that  this  is  possible  ?  It  means  that  some 
of  the  conditions  of  the  world's  deliverance  do 
actually  exist.  The  more  of  them  there  are 
existent,  the  fewer  preventing  conditions  you 

can  find,  the  better-grounded  is  the  salvation's 

28-i 


PRAGMATISM    AND    RELIGION 

possibility,  the  more  probable  does  the  fact  of 
the  deliverance  become. 

So  much  for  our  preliminary  look  at  pos- 
sibility. 

Now  it  would  contradict  the  very  spirit  of 
life  to  say  that  our  minds  must  be  indiffer- 
ent and  neutral  in  questions  like  that  of  the 
world's  salvation.  Any  one  who  pretends  to  be 
neutral  writes  himself  down  here  as  a  fool  and 
a  sham.  We  all  do  wish  to  minimize  the  inse- 
curity of  the  universe;  we  are  and  ought  to  be 
unhappy  when  we  regard  it  as  exposed  to  every 
enemy  and  open  to  every  life-destroying  draft. 
Nevertheless  there  are  unhappy  men  who 
think  the  salvation  of  the  world  impossible. 
Theirs  is  the  doctrine  known  as  pessimism. 

Optimism  in  turn  would  be  the  doctrine  that 
thinks  the  world's  salvation  inevitable. 

Midway  between  the  two  there  stands  what 
may  be  called  the  doctrine  of  meliorism,  tho 
it  has  hitherto  figured  less  as  a  doctrine  than 
as  an  attitude  in  human  affairs.  Optimism 
has  always  been  the  regnant  doctrine  in  Euro- 
pean   philosophy.     Pessimism    was    only  re- 

285 


PRAGMATISM 

cently  introduced  by  Schopenhauer  and  counts 
few  systematic  defenders  as  yet.  Meliorism 
treats  salvation  as  neither  necessary  nor  im- 
possible. It  treats  it  as  a  possibility,  which 
becomes  more  and  more  of  a  probability  the 
more  numerous  the  actual  conditions  of  salva- 
tion become. 

It  is  clear  that  pragmatism  must  incline 
towards  meliorism.  Some  conditions  of  the 
world's  salvation  are  actually  extant,  and  she 
can  not  possibly  close  her  eyes  to  this  fact: 
and  should  the  residual  conditions  come,  salva- 
tion would  become  an  accomplished  reality. 
Naturally  the  terms  I  use  here  are  exceedingly 
summary.  You  may  interpret  the  word  '  salva- 
tion' in  any  way  you  like,  and  make  it  as 
diffuse  and  distributive,  or  as  climacteric  and 
integral  a  phenomenon  as  you  please. 

Take,  for  example,  any  one  of  us  in  this 
room  with  the  ideals  which  he  cherishes  and  is 
willing  to  live  and  work  for.  Every  such  ideal 
realized  will  be  one  moment  in  the  world's  sal- 
vation. But  these  particular  ideals  are  not  bare 
abstract  possibilities.  They  are  grounded,  they 

286 


PRAGMATISM    AND    RELIGION 

are  live  possibilities,  for  we  are  their  live  cham- 
pions and  pledges,  and  if  the  complementary 
conditions  come  and  add  themselves, our  ideals 
will  become  actual  things.  What  now  are  the 
complementary  conditions  ?  They  are  first  such 
a  mixture  of  things  as  will  in  the  fulness  of 
time  give  us  a  chance,  a  gap  that  we  can  spring 
into,  and,  finally,  our  act. 

Does  our  act  then  create  the  world's  salva- 
tion so  far  as  it  makes  room  for  itself,  so  far  as 
it  leaps  into  the  gap  ?  Does  it  create,  not  the 
whole  world's  salvation  of  course,  but  just  so 
much  of  this  as  itself  covers  of  the  world's 
extent  ? 

Here  I  take  the  bull  by  the  horns,  and  in 
spite  of  the  whole  crew  of  rationalists  and 
monists,  of  whatever  brand  they  be,  I  ask  why 
not?  Our  acts,  our  turning-places,  where  we 
seem  to  ourselves  to  make  ourselves  and  grow, 
are  the  parts  of  the  world  to  which  w^e  are 
closest,  the  parts  of  which  our  knowledge  is 
the  most  intimate  and  complete.  Why  should 
we  not  take  them  at  their  face-value.^  ^Vhy 
may  they  not  be  the  actual  turning-places  and 

287 


PRAGMATISM 

growing-places  which  they  seem  to  be,  of  the 
'         world  — w^hy  not  the  w^orkshop  of  being,  where 
we  catch  fact  in  the  making,  so  that  nowhere 
I         may  the  world  grow  in  any  other  kind  of  way 
I         than  this? 
J  Irrational!  we  are  told.  How  can  new  being 

come  in  local  spots  and  patches  which  add 
themselves  or  stay  away  at  random,  independ- 
ently of  the  rest?  There  must  be  a  reason  for 
our  acts,  and  where  in  the  last  resort  can  any 
reason  be  looked  for  save  in  the  material 
pressure  or  the  logical  compulsion  of  the  total 
nature  of  the  world  ?  There  can  be  but  one  real 
agent  of  growth,  or  seeming  growth,  anywhere, 
and  that  agent  is  the  integral  world  itself.  It 
may  grow  all-over,  if  growth  there  be,  but  that 
single  parts  should  grow  per  se  is  irrational. 

But  if  one  talks  of  rationality  —  and  of  rea- 
sons for  things,  and  insists  that  they  can't  just 
come  in  spots,  w^hat  kind  of  a  reason  can  there 
ultimately  be  why  anything  should  come  at 
all  ?  Talk  of  logic  and  necessity  and  categories 
and  the  absolute  and  the  contents  of  the  whole 
philosophical  machine-shop  as  you  will,  the 

2r8 


PRAGMATISM    AND    RELIGION 

only  real  reason  I  can  think  of  why  anything 
should  ever  come  is  that  some  one  wishes  it  to 
be  here.  It  is  demanded,  —  demanded,  it  may 
be,  to  give  relief  to  no  matter  how  small  a 
fraction  of  the  world's  mass.  This  is  living 
reason,  and  compared  with  it  material  causes 
and  logical  necessities  are  spectral  things. 

In  short  the  only  fully  rational  w^orld  w^ould 
be  the  world  of  wishing-caps,  the  w^orld  of  tele- 
pathy, where  every  desire  is  fulfilled  instanter, 
without  having  to  consider  or  placate  surround- 
ing or  intermediate  powders.  This  is  the  Abso- 
lute's own  w^orld.  He  calls  upon  the  phenome- 
nal world  to  be,  and  it  is,  exactly  as  he  calls  for 
it,  no  other  condition  being  required.  In  our 
world,  the  wishes  of  the  individual  are  only 
one  condition.  Other  individuals  are  there 
with  other  wishes  and  they  must  be  propitiated 
first.  So  Being  grows  under  all  sorts  of  resist- 
ances in  this  world  of  the  many,  and,  from 
compromise  to  compromise,  only  gets  organ- 
ized gradually  into  what  may  be  called  second- 
arily rational  shape.  We  approach  the  wish- 
ing-cap  type  of  organization  only  in  a  few  de- 

289 


PRAGMATISM 

partments  of  life.  We  want  water  and  we  turn 
a  faucet.  We  want  a  kodak-picture  and  we 
press  a  button.  We  want  information  and  we 
telephone.  We  want  to  travel  and  we  buy  a 
ticket.  In  these  and  similar  cases,  we  hardly 
need  to  do  more  than  the  wishing  —  the  world 
is  rationally  organized  to  do  the  rest. 

But  this  talk  of  rationality  is  a  parenthesis 
and  a  digression.  What  we  were  discussing 
was  the  idea  of  a  world  growing  not  inte- 
grally but  piecemeal  by  the  contributions  of  its 
several  parts.  Take  the  hypothesis  seriously 
and  as  a  live  one.  Suppose  that  the  world's  au- 
thor put  the  case  to  you  before  creation, saying: 
"I  am  going  to  make  a  world  not  certain  to  be 
saved,  a  world  the  perfection  of  which  shall 
be  conditional  merely,  the  condition  being  that 
each  several  agent  does  its  own  *  level  best.' 
I  offer  you  the  chance  of  taking  part  in  such 
a  world.  Its  safety,  you  see,  is  unwarranted.  It 
is  a  real  adventure,  with  real  danger,  yet  it  may 
win  through.  It  is  a  social  scheme  of  co-op- 
erative work  genuinely  to  be  done.  Will  you 
join  the  procession }    Will  you  trust  yourself 

290 


PRAGMATISM    AND    RELIGION 

and  trust  the  other  agents  enough  to  face  the 
risk?'' 

Should  you  in  all  seriousness,  if  participa- 
tion in  such  a  world  were  proposed  to  you,  feel 
bound  to  reject  it  as  not  safe  enough  ?  Would 
you  say  that,  rather  than  be  part  and  parcel 
of  so  fundamentally  pluralistic  and  irrational 
a  universe,  you  preferred  to  relapse  into  the 
slumber  of  nonentity  from  which  you  had  been 
momentarily  aroused  by  the  tempter's  voice  ? 

Of  course  if  you  are  normally  constituted, 
you  would  do  nothing  of  the  sort.  There  is  a 
healthy-minded  buoyancy  in  most  of  us  which 
such  a  universe  would  exactly  fit.  We  would 
therefore  accept  the  offer  —  ** Top!  und  schlag 
auf  schlag!"  It  would  be  just  like  the  world 
w^e  practically  live  in;  and  loyalty  to  our  old 
nurse  Nature  would  forbid  us  to  say  no.  The 
world  proposed  would  seem  *  rational'  to  us  in 
the  most  living  way. 

Most  of  us,  I  say,  would  therefore  welcome 

the  proposition  and  add  our  fiat  to  the  fiat  of 

the  creator.  Yet  perhaps  some  w^ould  not ;  for 

there  are  morbid  minds  in  every  human  collect- 

291 


PRAGMATISM 

ion,  and  to  them  the  prospect  of  a  universe 
with  only  a  fighting  chance  of  safety  would 
probably  make  no  appeal.  There  are  moments 
of  discouragement  in  us  all,  when  we  are  sick 
of  self  and  tired  of  vainly  striving.  Our  own 
life  breaks  down,  and  we  fall  into  the  attitude 
of  the  prodigal  son.  We  mistrust  the  chances 
of  things.  We  want  a  universe  where  we  can 
just  give  up,  fall  on  our  father's  neck,  and  be 
absorbed  into  the  absolute  life  as  a  drop  of 
water  melts  into  the  river  or  the  sea. 

The  peace  and  rest,  the  security  desiderated 
at  such  moments  is  security  against  the  bewil- 
dering accidents  of  so  much  finite  experience. 
Nirvana  means  safety  from  this  everlasting 
round  of  adventures  of  which  the  world  of 
sense  consists.  The  hindoo  and  the  buddhist, 
for  this  is  essentially  their  attitude,  are  simply 
afraid,  afraid  of  more  experience,  afraid  of  life. 

And  to  men  of  this  complexion,  religious 
monism  comes  with  its  consoling  words:  '*A11 
is  needed  and  essential  —  even  you  with  your 
sick  soul  and  heart.  All  are  one  with  God,  and 
with  God  all  is  well.  The  everlasting  arms  are 

292 


PRAGMATISM    AND    RELIGION 

beneath,  whether  in  the  world  of  finite  appear- 
ance you  seem  to  fail  or  to  succeed."  There  can 
be  no  doubt  that  when  men  are  reduced  to  their 
last  sick  extremity  absolutism  is  the  only  saving 
scheme.  Pluralistic  moralism  simply  makes 
their  teeth  chatter,  it  refrigerates  the  very  heart 
within  their  breast. 

So  we  see  concretely  two  types  of  religion  in 
sharp  contrast.  Using  our  old  terms  of  compar- 
ison, we  may  say  that  the  absolutistic  scheme 
appeals  to  the  tender-minded  while  the  plural- 
istic scheme  appeals  to  the  tough.  Many  per- 
sons would  refuse  to  call  the  pluralistic  scheme 
religious  at  all.  They  would  call  it  moralistic, 
and  would  apply  the  w^ord  religious  to  the 
monistic  scheme  alone.  Religion  in  the  sense 
of  self-surrender,  and  moralism  in  the  sense  of 
self-su£Bcingness,  have  been  pitted  against  each 
other  as  incompatibles  frequently  enough  in 
the  history  of  human  thought. 

We  stand  here  before  the  final  question  of 
philosophy.  I  said  in  my  fourth  lecture  that 
I  believed  the  monistic-pluralistic  alternative 
to  be  the  deepest  and  most  pregnant  question 

293 


PRAGMATISM 

that  our  minds  can  frame.  Can  it  be  that  the 
disjunction  is  a  final  one  ?  that  only  one  side  can 
be  true  ?  Are  a  pluralism  and  monism  genuine 
incompatibles  ?  So  that,  if  the  world  were 
really  pluralistically  constituted,  if  it  really 
existed  distributively  and  were  made  up  of  a 
lot  of  caches,  it  could  only  be  saved  piecemeal 
and  de  facto  as  the  result  of  their  behavior,  and 
its  epic  history  in  no  wise  short-circuited  by 
some  essential  oneness  in  which  the  severalness 
were  already  'taken  up'  beforehand  and  eter- 
nally 'overcome'?  If  this  were  so,  w^e  should 
have  to  choose  one  philosophy  or  the  other. 
We  could  not  say  'yes,  yes 'to  both  alternatives. 
There  would  have  to  be  a  'no'  in  our  relations 
with  the  possible.  We  should  confess  an  ulti- 
mate disappointment:  we  could  not  remain 
healthy-minded  and  sick-minded  in  one  indi- 
visible act. 

Of  course  as  human  beings  we  can  be  healthy 
minds  on  one  day  and  sick  souls  on  the  next; 
and  as  amateur  dabblers  In  philosophy  we  may 
perhaps  be  allowed  to  call  ourselves  monistic 
pluralists,  or  free-will  determinists,  or  what- 

234 


PRAGMATISM   AND    RELIGION 

ever  else  may  occur  to  us  of  a  reconciling  kind. 
But  as  philosophers  aiming  at  clearness  and 
consistency,  and  feeling  the  pragmatistic  need 
of  squaring  truth  with  truth,  the  question  is 
forced  upon  us  of  frankly  adopting  either  the 
tender  or  the  robustious  type  of  thought.  In 
particular  this  query  has  always  come  home  to 
me:  May  not  the  claims  of  tender-mindedness 
go  too  far.?  May  not  the  notion  of  a  world  al- 
ready saved  in  toto  anyhow,  be  too  saccharine 
to  stand  .'^  May  not  religious  optimism  be  too 
idyllic?  Must  all  be  saved.?  Is  no  price  to 
be  paid  in  the  work  of  salvation?  Is  the  last 
word  sweet .^  Is  all  'yes,  yes'  in  the  universe.? 
Does  n't  the  fact  of  '  no '  stand  at  the  very  core 
of  life.?  Doesn't  the  very  'seriousness'  that 
we  attribute  to  life  mean  that  ineluctable  noes 
and  losses  form  a  part  of  it,  that  there  are  genu- 
ine sacrifices  somewhere,  and  that  something 
permanently  drastic  and  bitter  always  remains 
at  the  bottom  of  its  cup.^ 

lean  not  speak  officially  as  a  pragmatist  here; 
all  I  can  say  is  that  my  own  pragmatism  offers 

no  objection  to  my  taking  sides  with  this  more 

295 


PRAGMATISM 

moralistic  view,  and  giving  up  the  claim  of 
total  reconciliation.  The  possibility  of  this  is 
involved  in  the  pragmatistic  willingness  to  treat 
pluralism  as  a  serious  hypothesis.  In  the  end 
it  is  our  faith  and  not  our  logic  that  decides 
such  questions,  and  I  deny  the  right  of  any 
pretended  logic  to  veto  my  own  faith.  I  find 
myself  willing  to  take  the  universe  to  be  really 
dangerous  and  adventurous,  without  therefore 
backing  out  and  crying  *  no  play.'  I  am  willing 
to  think  that  the  prodigal-son  attitude,  open  to 
us  as  it  is  in  many  vicissitudes,  is  not  the  right 
and  final  attitude  towards  the  whole  of  life.  I 
am  willing  that  there  should  be  real  losses  and 
real  losers,  and  no  total  preservation  of  all  that 
is.  I  can  believe  in  the  ideal  as  an  ultimate,  not 
as  an  origin,  and  as  an  extract,  not  the  whole. 
When  the  cup  is  poured  off,  the  dregs  are  left 
behind  for  ever,  but  the  possibility  of  what  is 
poured  off  is  sweet  enough  to  accept. 

As  a  matter  of  fact  countless  human  imac:- 
inations  live  in  this  moralistic  and  epic  kind  of 
a  universe,  and  find  its  disseminated  and  strunfr- 
along  successes   sufficient  for  their  rational 

29C 


PRAGMATISM    AND    RELIGION 

needs.  There  is  a  finely  translated  epigram  in 
the  Greek  anthology  which  admirably  expresses 
this  state  of  mind,  this  acceptance  of  loss  as 
unatoned  for,  even  though  the  lost  element 
might  be  one's  self: 

"A  shipwrecked  sailor,  buried  on  this  coast, 
Bids  you  set  sail. 
Full  many  a  gallant  bark,  when  we  were  lost. 
Weathered  the  gale." 

Those  puritans  who  answered  *  yes '  to  the  ques- 
tion: Are  you  willing  to  be  damned  for  God's 
glory  .^  were  in  this  objective  and  magnan- 
imous condition  of  mind.  The  way  of  escape 
from  evil  on  this  system  is  not  by  getting  it 
'aufgehoben,'  or  preserved  in  the  whole  as  an 
element  essential  but  'overcome.'  It  is  by  di'op- 
ping  it  out  altogether,  throwing  it  overboard 
and  getting  beyond  it,  helping  to  make  a  uni- 
verse that  shall  forget  its  very  place  and  name. 
It  is  then  perfectly  possible  to  accept  sin- 
cerely a  drastic  kind  of  a  universe  from  which 
the  element  of  'seriousness'  is  not  to  be  ex- 
pelled. Whoso  does  so  is,  it  seems  to  me,  a 
genuine  pragmatist.    He  is  willing  to  live  on 

297 


PRAGMATISM 

a  scheme  of  uncertified  possibilities  which  he 
trusts;  willing  to  pay  with  his  own  person,  if 
need  be,  for  the  realization  of  the  ideals  which 
he  frames. 

What  now  actually  are  the  other  forces 
which  he  trusts  to  co-operate  with  him,  in 
a  universe  of  such  a  type  ?  They  are  at  least 
his  fellow  men,  in  the  stage  of  being  which  our 
actual  universe  has  reached.  But  are  there  not 
superhuman  forces  also,  such  as  religious  men 
of  the  pluralistic  type  we  have  been  consider- 
ing have  always  believed  in.?  Their  words 
may  have  sounded  monistic  when  they  said 
''there  is  no  God  but  God";  but  the  original 
polytheism  of  mankind  has  only  imperfectly 
and  vaguely  sublimated  itself  into  monotheism, 
and  monotheism  itself,  so  far  as  it  w^as  religious 
and  not  a  scheme  of  classroom  instruction  for 
the  metaphysicians,  has  always  viewed  God  as 
but  one  helper,  ^primus  inter  'pares,  in  the  midst 
of  all  the  shapers  of  the  great  world's  fate. 

I  fear  that  my  previous  lectures,  confined 
as  they  have  been  to  human  and  humanistic 
aspects,  may  have  left  the  impression  on  many 

238 


PRAGMATISM    AND    RELIGION 

of  you  that  pragmatism  means  methodically 
to  leave  the  superhuman  out.    I   have  shown 
small  respect  indeed  for  the  Absolute,  and  I 
have  until  this  moment  spoken  of  no  other 
superhuman  hypothesis  but  that.   But  I  trust 
that  you  see  sufficiently  that  the  Absolute  has 
nothing  but  its  superhumanness  in  common 
with  the  theistic  God.    On  pragmatistic  prin- 
ciples, if  the  hypothesis  of  God  works  satisfac- 
torily in  the  widest  sense  of  the  word,  it  is  true. 
Now  w^hatever  its  residual  difficulties  may  be, 
experience  shows  that  it  certainly  does  work, 
and  that  the  problem  is  to  build  it  out  and  de-   ' 
termine  it  so  that  it  will  combine  satisfactorily  | 
with  all   the  other  working  truths.    I  can  not 
start  upon  a  whole  theology  at  the  end  of  this 
last  lecture;   but  when  I  tell  you  that  I  have 
written  a  book  on  men's  religious  experience, 
which  on  the  whole  has  been  regarded  as  mak- 
ing for  the  reality  of  God,  you  will  perhaps 
exempt  my  own  pragmatism  from  the  charge 
of  being  an  atheistic  system.    I  firmly  disbe- 
lieve, myself,  that  our  human  experience  is  the 
highest  form  of  experience  extant  in  the  uni- 

299 


PRAGMATISM 

verse.  I  believe  rather  that  we  stand  in  much 
the  same  relation  to  the  whole  of  the  universe 
as  our  canine  and  feline  pets  do  to  the  whole  of 
human  life.  They  inhabit  our  drawing-rooms 
and  libraries.  They  take  part  in  scenes  of 
whose  significance  they  have  no  inkling.  They 
,  A  are  merely  tangent  to  curves  of  history  the 
beginnings  and  ends  and  forms  of  which  pass 
wholly  beyond  their  ken  So  we  are  tangent 
to  the  wider  life  of  things.  But,  just  as  many 
of  the  dog's  and  cat's  ideals  coincide  with  our 
ideals,  and  the  dogs  and  cats  have  daily  living 
proof  of  the  fact,  so  we  may  well  believe,  on  the 
proofs  that  religious  experience  affords,  that 
higher  powers  exist  and  are  at  work  to  save  the 
world  on  ideal  lines  similar  to  our  own.  / 

You  see  that  pragmatism  can  be  called  re- 
ligious, if  you  allow  that  religion  can  be  plural- 
istic or  merely  melioristic  in  type.  But  whether 
you  will  finally  put  up  with  that  type  of  relig- 
ion or  not  is  a  question  that  only  you  yourself 
can  decide.  Pragmatism  has  to  postpone  dog- 
matic answer,  for  we  do  not  yet  know  certainly 
which  type  of  religion  is  going  to  work  best 

300 


PRAGMATISM   AND    RELIGION 

in  the  long  run.    The  various  overbeliefs  of 
men,  their  several  faith-ventures,  are  in  fact 
what  are  needed  to  bring  the  evidence  in.  You 
will  probably  make  your  own  ventures  sev- 
erally.   If  radically  tough,  the  hurly-burly  of 
the  sensible  facts  of  nature  will  be  enough  for 
you,  and  you  will  need  no  religion  at  all.    If 
radically  tender,  you  will  take  up  with  the 
more  monistic  form  of  religion:  the  pluralistic 
form,  with  its  reliance  on  possibilities  that  are 
not  necessities,  wil^  not  seem  to  afford  you  se- 
curity enough 

But  if  you  are  neither  tough  nor  tender  in  an 
extreme  and  radical  sense,  but  mixed  as  most 
of  us  are,  it  may  seem  to  you  that  the  type  of 
pluralistic  and  moralistic  religion  that  I  have 
offered  is  as  good  a  religious  synthesis  as  you 
are  likely  to  find.  Between  the  two  extremes 
of  crude  naturalism  on  the  one  hand  and  tran- 
scendental absolutism  on  the  other,  you  may 
find  that  what  I  take  the  liberty  of  calling  the 
pragmatistic  or  melioristic  type  of  theism  is 
exactly  what  you  require. 


INDEX 


INDEX 


Abbey,  Westminster,  39. 

Abel,  214. 

Absolute,  the,  19,  145,  150  f,  270, 
289;  its  barrenness,  71;  its 
value,  73  f,  282;  its  inaccept- 
ability,  78;  vs.  the  'Ultimate,' 
159. 

Absolute  edition  of  the  world, 
265  f. 

Absolute  truth,  224. 

Abstract  ideas,  their  use,  128, 
150,  172,  210,  265. 

Abstractness  as  a  vice  in  philoso- 
phizing, 19,  30,  34,  51,  231,  263. 

Accountability,  116. 

Additions,  human,  to  the  given, 
255. 

Agreement  with  reality,  212. 

Ancestral  discoveries,  170,  182. 

Antholog}',  the  Greek,  297. 

A  priori  truth,  209, 

Baby,  174. 

BALForn,  104  f. 

Bear,  the  great,  252  f. 

Belief,  see  'truth.' 

Berkeley,  89. 

bosanquet,  17. 

Boston,  13. 

BOWNE,  18. 

Bradley,  30,  142,  249,  258. 

C^AR,  214,  254, 
Cain.  214. 
Caird,  17,  246. 

Caprice,  excluded  by  pragma- 
tism, 211,  233,  258. 


Cause,  180. 
Charles's  Wain,  252  f . 
Chesterton,  3. 
Claim,  truth  as  a,  227  f. 
Clash  of  Ix^liefs,  76  f. 
Classroom  philosophy,  21. 
Clerk-Maxwell,  197. 
Climate,  87. 

Common  sense.  Lecture  V;    de- 
fined, 171;  its  'categories,'  173; 

a  definite  stage   in  evolution; 

result  of  successive  discoveries, 

170,  182. 
Concepts,  their  use,  128,  172. 
Conjunctive  relations,  147  f. 
Constellations,  252  f . 
Copy-theory  of  truth,  199, 213, 235. 
Corridor-theory,  54. 
Cowpath,  203. 
Creative     functions     of     human 

mind,  255  f,  287  f. 
Cripple  Creek,  13. 
'Critical'  level  of  thought,   185, 

189  f. 
Critical  philosophy,  186. 
Criticisms   of   pragmatism,    233, 

258,  268. 

Damned,  Leibnitz  on  the,  24. 
Design  in  nature,  109-115. 
Desire  creative  of  reality,  287. 
De\\^y,  57,  75,  233. 
Dilemma  of  philosophy.  Lecture 

I,  especially,  pp.  15-20. 
'Dipper,'  the.  252  f. 
Discourse,   universe   of,    133;  its 

relation  to  truth,  212  f. 


305 


INDEX 


Disjunctive  relations,  148  f. 
Dog,  mind  of,  175. 
DUHEM,  57. 

Empiricism,     9  f ,     51;  'radical,' 

ix. 
Energy,  191,  216. 
Escape,  philosophies  as  places  of, 

34. 
Eucharist,  88. 
EucKEN,  256. 
Experience,  sensible,  172. 

Facts,  263;  empiricism  holds  by 
them,  12;  pragmatism  loves 
them,  68;  idealism  neglects 
them,  70;  their  relation  to 
truth,  225. 

Fallacy,  the  sentimentalist's,  229. 

Fitness,  113. 

Football-game,  12. 

Franklin,  49. 

Free-will,  problem  of,  115  f;  a 
melioristic  doctrine,  119. 

FULLERTON,   117. 

Future,  hypothesis  of  world  with- 
out, 96  f;  of  world  with,  100. 

Geniuses,  prehistoric,  182. 

God,  19,  70,  72,  80,  97  f,  104- 
115,  299;  vs.  matter  as  a  prin- 
ciple, 101  f;  scholastic  defini- 
tion of,  121;  supposed  choice 
offered  us  by,  290. 

Good,  its  relation  to  truth,  75. 

Green,  17,  246. 

Haeckel,  15. 
Health,  222. 
Hegel,  185. 


History  of  pragmatism,  46  f. 
Hodgson,  50. 
Holidays,  moral,  74. 
Humanism,  65;  Lecture  VH,  esi 

pecially,  242  f . 
Huxley,  120. 

Ideals,  as  creative,  286  f. 

Idealism,  transcendental,  17;  see 
'Absolute';  Berkeley's,  89. 

Identity,  personal,  90  f. 

Imputability,  117. 

Influence,  134  f. 

Instrumental  view  of  truth,  53, 
194. 

Intellectualism,  10,  200;  see  'ra- 
tionalism.' 

Intellectualist  attacks  on  prag- 
matism, 67;  view  of  truth.  200, 
218,  226. 

Interaction  of  things,  134  f. 

Kant,  172. 
Kinds,  180. 
Knower,  the  absolute,  147,  150. 

165. 
Knowledge,  how  it  grows,  167. 

Ladd,  18. 

Law,  '</t€,'  240;  law  as  a  scien- 
tific concept,  180. 

Laws  of  thought  and  of  nature, 
5Q. 

Laymen  in  philosophy,  14. 

Leibnitz,  23  f. 

Lessing,  220. 

Letter  from  member  of  audience, 
268,  278. 

Levels  of  thought  compared,  188- 
192. 


'6i)Q 


INDEX 


Locke,  90. 
Logic,  inductive,  55. 
Lord's  supper,  88. 
LoTZE,  256. 

1SL\.CH,  57. 

McTaggart,  118. 

Many,  the  One  and  the.  Lecture 
IV;  Manyness  co-ordinate  with 
oneness,  138. 

Materialism  defined,  93. 

Matter,  Berkeley  on,  89;  Spencer 
on  its  supposed  crassness,  Qi; 
vs.  God,  as  a  principle,  98-108. 

Mechanism,  111. 

Meliorism,  119,  127,  285  f. 

Merit,  118. 

Method,  the  pragmatic,   45,  51. 

MiLHAUD,  57. 

Monism,  276;  must  be  absolute, 
159  f;  religious,  292  f;  con- 
trasted with  pluralism,  259.  See 
'unity.' 

Monistic  sentiment,  149  f,  159. 

Mont-Pelee  eruption,  113. 

Moral  holidays,  74. 

Morbid  minds,  291. 

Myees,  256. 

Mysticism  aflBrms  unity,  151  f. 

Names,  213. 

Naturalism,  16. 

New  beliefs,  their  formation,  59. 

Old  truths,  their  part  in  forming 
new  truth,  60  f,  245;  formed 
out  of  still  older  truth,  65  f, 
246  f. 

One,  the,  and  the  Many,  Lecture 
IV. 


Oneness,  see  'unity.' 
Optimism,  23,  29  f,  285. 
OSTWALD,  48,  57. 

Pantheism,  70. 

Papini,  54,  79,  159,  257. 

Past,  reality  of  the,  214. 

Pearson,  57. 

Peirce,  46. 

Personal  identity,  90  f. 

Pessimism,  285. 

Philosophies,  38;  their  contrast 
with  reality,  21,  34;  their  short- 
comings, 37. 

Philosophy,  characterized,  3  f, 
38;  its  temperament,  51  f; 
seeks  variety  as  well  as  unity, 
129;  gives  a  world  in  two 
editions,  61,  265  f ;  professors 
of,  33. 

Pluralism,  160;  noetic,  135,  166, 
277;  contrasted  with  monism, 
259,  293. 

POINCARE,  57. 

Possibility,  282  f. 

Pragmatic  method,  46  f,  54. 

Pragmatism,  what  it  means,  Lec- 
ture II;  as  a  method,  45  f;  as. 
a  theory  of  truth,  55;  as  a  medi- 
ator, 33,  300  f ;  its  history,  4T; 
characterized,  51;  its  contrast 
with  rationalism,  68,  281;  3:s 
affinity  with  Science,  68;  its 
genialit}',  80;  looks  towards 
facts  and  the  future,  122^",:  Sa- 
vors pluralism,  156,  161,.  296; 
its  critics,  233;  its  relations 
with  religion.  Lecture  VIM; 
accused  of  tough-mindedness, 
279;  is  melioristic,  286^ 


307 


INDEX 


Principles,   rationalism  leans  on 

them,  12,  52. 
Promise,  God,  a  term  of,  102, 108; 

design     ditto,     115;     free  will 

ditto,  120. 
Protestantism,  123. 
Punishment,  91,  116. 

Rationalism,  9  f ;  its  refined  uni- 
verse, 21,  27;  its  temperament, 
22,  67  f;  characterized,  51  f; 
its  view  of  pragmatism,  233, 
259  f ;  its  view  of  truth,  see 
•truth.' 

Rationality,  288,  291. 

Reality,  defined,  212,  244;  con- 
crete, 30;  its  three  parts,  244  f ; 
hard  to  find  raw,  249;  theories 
of,  250;  accepts  human  addi- 
tions, 251;  which  of  its  deter- 
minations are  the  truer?  252; 
ready  made?  or  still  making? 
257;  exists  in  distributive  form, 
264;  its  relation  to  desire,  289. 

Refinement  of  rationalism's  uni- 
verse, 22. 

Reflection,  total,  127. 

Religion  and  pragmatism.  Lec- 
ture VIII. 

Religion,  M.  I.  Swift  on,  31;  is 
of  two  types,  17,  293  f,  300. 

RiCKERT,  228,  236. 

RoYCE,  17,  29,  142,  146. 

Salvation  of  world,  284. 

Santayana,  175. 

Schiller,  57,  65  f,  75,  159,  233, 

240  f,  249. 
Sciences,    their    philosophy,    56, 

185  f ;  their  utilty,  186  f. 


SCHLAU,  HaNSCHER,  "^0. 

Selective  activity  of  mind,  246  f , 
Sensations,  246. 
Sensationalism,  10. 
Sentimentalist  fallacy,  229. 
Shoes,  111. 
SiGWART,  57. 

Single-word  solutions  of  world- 
enigma,  239. 

Solomon,  52. 

Space,  a  discovery,  174,  177. 

Spencer,  characterized,  39;  on 
'matter,'  94;  his  'unknow- 
able,' 102. 

Sphinx,  239. 

Squirrel,  43. 

Student's  thesis,  21. 

Substance,  85;  material,  89;  spir- 
itual, 90;  the  category  of,  184  f. 

Summarizing  reactions  of  our 
mind,  35. 

Swift,  28. 

Systematic  union  of  things,  136. 

Taylor,  227,  244. 

Temperament,  in  philosophy,  7, 
51. 

Tender-mindedness,  12  f,  263; 
in  religion,  295  f. 

Theism,  17,  70,  103. 

Theories,  as  instruments,  53,  194. 

Thesis,  my  student's,  21. 

'Thing,'  a  common-sense  cate- 
gory, 178,  183  f;  its  ambiguity, 
253. 

Time,  a  discovery,  174,  177,  183. 

Tough -mindedness,  12  f,  263. 

Transcendental  idealism,  19. 

True,  a  species  of  good,  76;  means 
expedient    thinking,  222. 


308 


INDEX 


Truth,  pragmatic  view  of,  Lec- 
ture VI;  Schiller  and  Dewey 
on,  58;  its  definition,  198;  in- 
tellectualist  view  of,  200,  218, 
226;  as  the  Truth,  239;  prag- 
matically it  means  verifiabil- 
ity,  201;  its  utility,  203;  its 
function  of  'leading,'  205  f;  is 
what  works,  213  f;  is  made, 
224;  rationalist  definitions  of, 
227;  their  weakness,  230  f; 
must  be  concretely  discussed, 
231. 

Truths  may  clash,  78;  eternal, 
209.  See  'old  truths.* 

Ultimate,  the,  vs.  the  Absolute, 
159, 165. 

Unification  vs.  unity,  280. 

Unity  of  things.  Lecture  IV,  pas- 
sim; not  philosophy's  sole 
quest,  129  f;  pragmatic  study 
of,  132,  148,  155;  of  system, 
136;  of  origin,  138;  generic, 
139;  of  purpose,  140;  esthetic, 
143;  noetic,  145;  affirmed  by 


Hindu  philosophy,  151;  vari- 
ous grades  of,  156;  absolute, 
160. 

Universe  of  discourse,  133. 

Unknowable,  the,  102. 

Usefulness,  of  truth,  202;  of  ab- 
stract concepts,  128,  150,  172, 
210,265;  of  Absolute,  75  f. 

Vedanta;  151. 

Verification  defined,  201;  vs. 
verifiability,  207;  means  lead- 
ing, 215. 

Vestigial  peculiarities,  169, 

Vision  designed,  109. 

VlVEKANANDA,  151  f. 

Wafer,  88. 
Wealth,  220. 
Weather,  174. 
Westminster  Abbey,  39. 
Whitman,  35, 274. 
Woodpecker,  110. 
Words,  in  philosophy,  52. 
World,  two  editions  of,  259,  264 
Worth,  of  God,  97. 


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